When to Plant Melons in San Francisco, CA

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 way of determining when you can plant melons is to check out the USDA zone info for San Francisco.

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Planting Calendar for Melons

Frost tolerance for melons: Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant: After the last frost has passed.

It's probably a bad idea to plant melons until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant melons
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant melons
Probably not a good time to plant melons

The earliest that you can plant melons in San Francisco 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 melons and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your melons may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your melons indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in San Francisco. It might get as low as 35°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for San Francisco may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in San Francisco last frost occurs after January 31 so be sure to be ready to protect your melons in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for San Francisco

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low35°F
Highest Expected Low40°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 35°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 40°F.

Plants to Grow in San Francisco

You may be interested in your other planting guides for San Francisco.