Melon · Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico
When to plant melons in Zapopan
Main outdoor window
not outdoors here
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
no spring frost
In Zapopan, on your chosen risk.
First autumn frost
26 December
The far end of the outdoor season.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Zapopan
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Melons through the year
Against the frost risk in Zapopan
Why these dates
Plant out three weeks after last frost, not two. Black plastic mulch or a cloche raises soil temperature enough to make melons viable several hundred kilometres further north than they otherwise would be.
Melons stop growing below 15C and never fully recover. Frost is fatal, but the real limit is cool nights.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Melons are timed from 4 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 3 weeks after it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Zapopan.
Also in Zapopan
Other vegetables to time
Growing melons in Zapopan
How much frost will melons tolerate?
Melons stop growing below 15C and never fully recover. Frost is fatal, but the real limit is cool nights.