When to Plant Pea in Braidwood, IL

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.

By looking at the USDA zone info for Braidwood it's a good idea to figure out when to plant pea.


Planting Calendar for Pea

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

Pea do well in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them much earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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

The earliest that you can plant pea in Braidwood 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. If you wait any later than that and your pea may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your pea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in Braidwood. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Braidwood is an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Half of the time in Braidwood last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your pea if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Braidwood

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 Braidwood

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