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.

It's possible to estimate when it's possible to plant melons by referring to the USDA zone info for Bethalto.

Planting Calendar for Melons

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

It's a bad idea to plant melons until after all chance of frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant melons in Bethalto 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 melons and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your melons may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your melons indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Bethalto. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Bethalto is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Bethalto it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your melons if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Bethalto

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-10°F
Highest Expected Low	-5°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 -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Bethalto

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