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

You can determine when it's a good idea to plant sweet peas in Benton Harbor by referring to the USDA zone info.

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.

You can plant sweet peas just a tiny bit earlier in the year because they do ok in moderate cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in Benton Harbor 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sweet peas may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sweet peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Benton Harbor. You can expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Benton Harbor is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in Benton Harbor there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sweet peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Benton Harbor

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-5°F
Highest Expected Low	0°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 0°F.

Plants to Grow in Benton Harbor

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Benton Harbor.