Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate 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 determining when it's a good idea to plant strawberries is to check out the USDA zone info for Sparta.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

Frost tolerance for strawberries:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Strawberries are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them a quite a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Sparta is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant strawberries and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your strawberries may not have a chance to grow to maturity. Starting your strawberries indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Sparta. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Sparta is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Sparta you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your strawberries if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Sparta

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Sparta

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