One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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.

The USDA zone info for Apex should be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant cantaloupes.

Planting Calendar for Cantaloupes

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant cantaloupes until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they require warm weather.

The earliest that you can plant cantaloupes in Apex 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 cantaloupes and expect a good harvest is probably August. If you wait any later than that and your cantaloupes may not have a chance to fully mature. If you are starting your cantaloupes indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Apex. You should expect an average low temperature of 5°F in the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Apex is just an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Apex you get surprised by a frost after April 15 so always be ready to protect your cantaloupes if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Apex

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Apex

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