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.

One way of determining when you can plant sweet peas is to look at the USDA zone info for Fairfax.

Planting Calendar for Sweet Peas

Frost tolerance for sweet peas:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Sweet Peas do ok in moderate cold which tells us that you can start planting them slightly earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in Fairfax 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 sweet peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sweet peas may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your sweet peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Fairfax. You can expect an average low temperature of 25°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that USDA zone info for Fairfax is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Fairfax last frost occurs after February 15 be ready to cover your sweet peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Fairfax

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Fairfax

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