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.

In Granite City you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant melons by looking at the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Melons

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

Since melons do not do well in cold weather you really should wait until after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant melons in Granite City 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 couple of weeks earlier by starting your melons indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Granite City. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Remember that USDA zone info for Granite City is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Granite City you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your melons in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Granite City

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Granite City

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Granite City.