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.

You should be able to determine when you can plant melampodium by looking at the USDA zone info for Tracy.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

Since melampodium do not do well in cold weather you must wait until after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

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

The last month that you can plant melampodium and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your melampodium may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your melampodium indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on February 15 in Tracy. You should expect an average low temperature of 20°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Tracy is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Tracy last frost occurs after February 15 so just be sure to be ready to protect your melampodium if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Tracy

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	20°F
Highest Expected Low	25°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 25°F.

Plants to Grow in Tracy

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