One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

You can estimate when it's the best time to plant melons in Orting by referring to the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Melons

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

It's probably a bad idea to plant melons until after the last frost when the weather gets warmer because they do not do well in cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant melons in Orting 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 melons and expect a good harvest is probably August. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your melons may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your melons indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on March 15 in Orting. It might get as low as 15°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that USDA zone info for Orting is an average and the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Orting it frosts late in the year after March 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your melons if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Orting

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 Low	15°F
Highest Expected Low	20°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 Orting

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