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.

A way of figuring out when you can plant melampodium is to look at the USDA zone info for Baton Rouge.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

It's not a good idea to plant melampodium until after the last frost because they are not cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Baton Rouge 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your melampodium indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Baton Rouge the average date of last frost happens on March 15. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Baton Rouge is just an average and the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Baton Rouge last frost occurs after March 15 be ready to protect your melampodium if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Baton Rouge

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 20°F.

Plants to Grow in Baton Rouge

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Baton Rouge.