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

In Marion you can figure out when it's a good idea to plant field peas by looking at the USDA zone info.

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 one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant field peas in Marion 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 grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your field peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on March 15 in Marion. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Marion is not always accurate the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Half of the time in Marion there is a last frost after March 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your field peas if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Marion

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Marion

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