One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant cantaloupes is to look at the USDA zone info for Bentonville.

Planting Calendar for Cantaloupes

Frost tolerance for cantaloupes:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Since cantaloupes are not cold tolerant it's important to wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant cantaloupes in Bentonville is April. However, you really should wait until May if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant cantaloupes and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cantaloupes may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your cantaloupes indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Bentonville. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Bentonville is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Bentonville it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your cantaloupes in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bentonville

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 Bentonville

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