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.

A common way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant sweet peas is to refer to the USDA zone info for Saco.

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.

Sweet Peas are one of those plants that can tolerate a tiny bit of cold weather which tells us that you can plant them slightly earlier than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in Saco is March. However, you really should wait until April 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 August. If you wait any later than that and your sweet peas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your sweet peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

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

Since the USDA zone info for Saco is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Saco you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sweet peas if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Saco

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 Saco

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