One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You will be able to determine when you can plant strawberries by looking at the USDA zone info for Waterloo.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

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

Strawberries do well in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Waterloo 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. Any later than that and your strawberries may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your strawberries indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Waterloo. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Waterloo and it changes from year to year. Half of the time in Waterloo there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your strawberries in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Waterloo

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 Waterloo

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