The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A way of determining when it's the best time to plant watermelon is to use the USDA zone info for Gurnee.

Planting Calendar for Watermelon

Frost tolerance for watermelon:	Not tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	After the last frost when the weather gets warmer.

Watermelon are not cold tolerant which means that you need to wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant watermelon in Gurnee 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your watermelon may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your watermelon indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Gurnee. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Gurnee is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Gurnee you get a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your watermelon if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Gurnee

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 Gurnee

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