When to Plant Peas

Planting time for peas is set by your frost dates, not by the calendar month. Sow directly in the garden about 5 weeks before your last frost, as soon as the ground is workable. From there it takes roughly 60 days to the first harvest. Peas is a hardy crop, and it keeps going about 14 days past a light frost, which is what makes a fall crop worth planting. Pick your zone below for exact dates, or find your zone by ZIP if you are not sure which one you are in.

Fall peas have to be sown into the heat of late summer and germinate poorly above 80 degrees, which is why they fail more often than spring peas. Sow thickly and keep the seedbed damp.

Fall dates are counted backward from your first frost, not forward from a sowing date. Take the 60 days peas needs, add about two weeks because growth slows once days shorten after the equinox, then subtract the roughly 14 days peas keeps going once light frost arrives. That is 60 days before your first frost. The coldest zone where this still works on the averages is Zone 3a.

For the whole-garden version of this arithmetic, see the fall planting calendar by zone, and how to read and stretch your first frost date.

Peas grow well next to carrots, radishes and corn. Keep them away from onions and garlic. Same allium effect as beans: alliums suppress the nodulation legumes rely on. The full grid for all 24 crops is in the companion planting chart.