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 making a decision about when it's possible to plant watermelon is to use the USDA zone info for Arcadia.

Planting Calendar for Watermelon

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

It's probably not a good idea to plant watermelon until after the last frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Arcadia. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Arcadia is an average and the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Arcadia it frosts late in the year after February 15 be ready to protect your watermelon in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Arcadia

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Arcadia

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