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.

A common way of figuring out when it's the best time to plant melons is to examine the USDA zone info for Berea.

Planting Calendar for Melons

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

Since melons do not do well in cold weather it's necessary to wait until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant melons in Berea 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 fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your melons indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Berea. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Berea is not always accurate the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Berea there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your melons if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Berea

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 Berea

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