One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The most important data that the zone info tells us is average last frost and the lowest expected temperature for your area.

The USDA zone info for New Orleans can be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant sweet peas.

Planting Calendar for Sweet Peas

Frost tolerance for sweet peas:	Tolerant of a very small amount of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 3 weeks before last frost.

Since sweet peas are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in New Orleans 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 sweet peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your sweet peas may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your sweet peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on February 15 in New Orleans. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for New Orleans is just an average the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in New Orleans there is a last frost after February 15 be ready to cover your sweet peas in the event of a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for New Orleans

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	December 15
Lowest Expected Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in New Orleans

You may be interested in your other planting guides for New Orleans.