When to Plant Field Peas in Forest Park, IL

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.

One way of determining when it's possible to plant field peas is to consult the USDA zone info for Forest Park.


Planting Calendar for Field Peas

Frost tolerance for field peas: Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant: Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Field Peas tend to make it in a little bit of cold which tells us that you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

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 Forest Park 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 field peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your field peas may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your field peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Forest Park. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Remember that the actual date of last frost is an average because it is based on the USDA zone info for Forest Park and it is different every year. Half of the time in Forest Park last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to cover your field peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Forest Park

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Forest Park

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Forest Park.