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.

By checking out the USDA zone info for Shenandoah you should be able to estimate when it's possible to plant watermelon.

Planting Calendar for Watermelon

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant watermelon until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant watermelon in Shenandoah 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 few weeks earlier by starting your watermelon indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Shenandoah. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Shenandoah is not always accurate and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Shenandoah you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your watermelon if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Shenandoah

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

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

Plants to Grow in Shenandoah

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