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 Oil City you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant strawberries by using 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.

Strawberries are very cold tolerant 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 Oil City 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 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 has passed is on April 15 in Oil City. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Oil City is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Oil City last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your strawberries in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Oil City

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 Oil City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Oil City.