Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to figure out your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of determining when it's a good idea to plant melampodium is to check out the USDA zone info for Minooka.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant melampodium until after the last frost has passed because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Minooka 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. Any later than that and your melampodium may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your melampodium indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Minooka the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Minooka is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Minooka it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your melampodium in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Minooka

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 Minooka

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