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

A way of determining when it's a good idea to plant melampodium is to check out the USDA zone info for Brookfield.

Planting Calendar for Melampodium

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

Melampodium require warm weather which means that it is important to wait until it warms up after the last frost before you can plant them.

The earliest that you can plant melampodium in Brookfield 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your melampodium may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your melampodium indoors.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Brookfield is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Brookfield you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your melampodium if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Brookfield

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

Plants to Grow in Brookfield

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