The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine 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 refer to the USDA zone info for Helotes.

Planting Calendar for Strawberries

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

Strawberries can survive in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant strawberries in Helotes 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. If you are starting your strawberries indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Helotes. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Helotes is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Helotes you get a frost after March 15 be ready to protect your strawberries in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Helotes

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Helotes

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