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.

The USDA zone info for West Chicago can be looked at to figure out when it's the best time to plant peas.

Planting Calendar for Peas

Frost tolerance for peas:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant peas quite a bit earlier in the year because they are very cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant peas in West Chicago is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your peas may not have a chance to fully mature. Starting your peas indoors is a great way to get them started a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in West Chicago. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for West Chicago is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in West Chicago it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for West Chicago

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 West Chicago

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Chicago.