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 Clay can be reffered to in order to figure out when it's a good idea to plant field peas.

Planting Calendar for Field Peas

Frost tolerance for field peas:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since field peas are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant field peas in Clay 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 field peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. Any later than that and your field peas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your field peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Clay. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Clay may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Clay you get a frost after April 15 be ready to cover your field peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Clay

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Clay

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