One of the first steps you take when you are making a decision about 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.

A common way of making a decision about when it's possible to plant sweet peas is to use the USDA zone info for Chadron.

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 barely cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted just a bit earlier than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in Chadron 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 grow to maturity. If you are starting your sweet peas indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a couple of weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Chadron. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -20°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Chadron is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Chadron you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your sweet peas in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Chadron

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Chadron

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