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.

The USDA zone info for Santa Clara should be read to estimate when to plant pea.

Planting Calendar for Pea

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

Pea can survive in pretty solid cold which tells us that you can plant them a lot earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant pea in Santa Clara 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 really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your pea indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Santa Clara. You can expect an average low temperature of 10°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Clara is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Santa Clara there is a last frost after March 15 so always be ready to protect your pea if you have a late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Clara

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 Santa Clara

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Clara.