When to Plant Field Peas in Portola Valley, CA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

You can determine when to plant field peas in Portola Valley by referring to the USDA zone info.


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 bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant field peas
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant field peas
Probably not a good time to plant field peas

The earliest that you can plant field peas in Portola Valley is January. However, you really should wait until February 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 October. Any later than that and your field peas may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your field peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on January 31 in Portola Valley. You can expect an average low temperature of 30°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Portola Valley is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Portola Valley you get a frost after January 31 be ready to protect your field peas in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Portola Valley

Here is the info for USDA Zone 10a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)January 31
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low30°F
Highest Expected Low35°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 30°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 35°F.

Plants to Grow in Portola Valley

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Portola Valley.