One of the first steps you take when you are figuring out 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 Madison should be reffered to in order to estimate when it's possible to plant snow peas.

Planting Calendar for Snow peas

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

Since snow peas do well in cold you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant snow peas in Madison 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 snow peas and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your snow peas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your snow peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in Madison. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

It's important to remember that the actual date of last frost may not be accurate from year to year because it is based on the USDA zone info for Madison and it is different every year. Half of the time in Madison it frosts late in the year after April 15 so make sure that you are ready to protect your snow peas in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Madison

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-20°F
Highest Expected Low	-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Madison

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