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 common way of figuring out when to plant watermelon is to examine the USDA zone info for Meridian.

Planting Calendar for Watermelon

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

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

The earliest that you can plant watermelon in Meridian 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. If you wait any later than that and your watermelon may not have a chance to really do well. 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

On average all chance of frost has passed is on March 15 in Meridian. You should expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Meridian may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Meridian it frosts late in the year after March 15 be ready to cover your watermelon in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Meridian

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Meridian

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