One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

It's a good idea to figure out when it's possible to plant snow peas by reviewing the USDA zone info for Des Plaines.

Planting Calendar for Snow peas

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

Since snow peas are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant snow peas in Des Plaines 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 snow peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your snow peas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your snow peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Des Plaines. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Keep in mind that USDA zone info for Des Plaines is an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Des Plaines last frost occurs after April 15 so always be ready to protect your snow peas in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Des Plaines

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 Des Plaines

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Des Plaines.