Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to determine your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

In Chester you can determine when it's possible to plant melampodium by reviewing the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

It's a bad idea to plant melampodium until after all chance of frost has passed because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Chester 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your melampodium indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Chester. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Chester and it will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Chester 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 Chester

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 Chester

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