When to Plant Watermelon in Palestine, TX

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of figuring out when it's possible to plant watermelon is to examine the USDA zone info for Palestine.


Planting Calendar for Watermelon

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

Watermelon are not cold tolerant which means that you have to wait until it warms up after the last frost has passed before you can plant them.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant watermelon
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant watermelon
Probably not a good time to plant watermelon

The earliest that you can plant watermelon in Palestine 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. 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 the last frost is on March 15 in Palestine. You can expect an average low temperature of 15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Palestine is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Palestine last frost occurs after March 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your watermelon in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Palestine

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 Low15°F
Highest Expected Low20°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 Palestine

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