The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us figure out your gardening 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 the best time to plant strawberries is to check out the USDA zone info for Lancaster.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

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

Strawberries are very cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted much earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Lancaster 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. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your strawberries indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Lancaster. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Keep in mind that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Lancaster and it will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Lancaster it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your strawberries if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lancaster

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 Lancaster

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