Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant watermelon is to examine the USDA zone info for Riverdale.

Planting Calendar for Watermelon

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

Since watermelon are not cold tolerant you really should wait until after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant watermelon in Riverdale 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 watermelon and expect a good harvest is probably August. Any later than that and your watermelon may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your watermelon indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Riverdale. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of 10°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Riverdale is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Riverdale you get surprised by a frost after March 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your watermelon if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Riverdale

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Riverdale

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