When to Plant Sweet Peas in Shippensburg, PA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us estimate 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.

The first opportunity to plant sweet peas in Shippensburg should be estimated by using 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 are barely cold tolerant.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant sweet peas
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant sweet peas
Probably not a good time to plant sweet peas

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in Shippensburg 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. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your sweet peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Shippensburg the average date of last frost happens on April 15. You should expect an average low temperature of -5°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Shippensburg is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Shippensburg 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 Shippensburg

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 Low0°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 Shippensburg

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