One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 way of determining when it's possible to plant pea is to examine the USDA zone info for Louisville.

Planting Calendar for Pea

Frost tolerance for pea:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

Pea are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather which means that you can start planting them much earlier than other frost tender plants.

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

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Louisville. You can expect an average low temperature of -10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Louisville is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Louisville it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your pea in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Louisville

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Louisville

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