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.

A way of determining when it's possible to plant peas is to check out the USDA zone info for Rifle.

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 earlier in the year because they are very cold tolerant.

The earliest that you can plant peas in Rifle 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 grow to maturity. If you are starting your peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Rifle. You should expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rifle is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Rifle there is a last frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to cover your peas in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rifle

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 Rifle

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