One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine 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.

One way of determining when to plant pea is to look at the USDA zone info for Rochester.

Planting Calendar for Pea

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

Since pea are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant pea in Rochester 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your pea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost when the weather gets warmer is on April 15 in Rochester. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Rochester may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Rochester last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to protect your pea in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Rochester

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 Rochester

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