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.

A way of estimating when it's possible to plant sweet peas is to use the USDA zone info for South Milwaukee.

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.

Since sweet peas are barely cold tolerant you can plant them slightly earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to the cold.

The earliest that you can plant sweet peas in South Milwaukee 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your sweet peas may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your sweet peas indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in South Milwaukee. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for South Milwaukee is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in South Milwaukee last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your sweet peas in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for South Milwaukee

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

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

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in South Milwaukee

You may be interested in your other planting guides for South Milwaukee.