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 making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant melampodium is to look at the USDA zone info for Northwood.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

Melampodium are not cold tolerant which tells us that you need to wait until it warms up after all chance of frost has passed before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Northwood 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. Starting your melampodium indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

In Northwood the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Northwood is an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Northwood it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your melampodium if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Northwood

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 Northwood

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