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.

The USDA zone info for Rio Rancho can be read to determine when it's the best time to plant field peas.

Planting Calendar for Field Peas

Frost tolerance for field peas:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since field peas are moderately cold tolerant you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant field peas in Rio Rancho 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 field peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your field peas may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your field peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average all chance of frost has passed is on April 15 in Rio Rancho. It might get as low as 5°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Rio Rancho is not always accurate the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Rio Rancho it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to cover your field peas if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Rio Rancho

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°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 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Rio Rancho

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Rio Rancho.