Before planting it is a good idea to find your USDA Zone info to estimate your garden schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of making a decision about when it's a good idea to plant pea is to check out the USDA zone info for Johnston.

Planting Calendar for Pea

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

You can plant pea a lot earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

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

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Johnston. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Johnston is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Johnston there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your pea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Johnston

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Johnston

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