One of the first steps you take when you are determining your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Watseka you can figure out when it's the best time to plant strawberries by checking out the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

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

Since strawberries are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Watseka 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. If you wait any later than that and your strawberries may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your strawberries indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Watseka is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Watseka you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your strawberries in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Watseka

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in Watseka

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