One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

The USDA zone info for Deerfield can be looked at to determine when to plant melampodium.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

You can not plant melampodium until after the last frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Deerfield. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Always keep in mind that USDA zone info for Deerfield is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Deerfield it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your melampodium in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Deerfield

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 Deerfield

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