When to Plant String beans in Hiawatha, IA

Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant string beans is to refer to the USDA zone info for Hiawatha.


Planting Calendar for String beans

Frost tolerance for string beans: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After all chance of frost has passed.

Since string beans do not do well in cold weather it is necessary to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant string beans
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant string beans
Probably not a good time to plant string beans

The earliest that you can plant string beans in Hiawatha is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant string beans and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your string beans may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your string beans indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Hiawatha the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Hiawatha is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Hiawatha there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to cover your string beans if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Hiawatha

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Hiawatha

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Hiawatha.