I am near Indianapolis and I planted my peas last year on March 22 and they did great. According to the local (Purdue) horticulture website, planting time for peas in our area begins March 20. Yesterday I went out and dug up the area where I will plant the peas this year. This weekend I will fix the trellises I built last year and stored in the barn over the winter. I plan to plant on March 20. I know the original poster is in Maine but is also in zone 5. I would check your local horticulture office and see what they recommend for your area. Peas are a cool weather crop. They are one of the few things that can handle weather that is still on the cool side.

Hey Crafty - how are the peas doing? I'm still waiting a bit for the pea planting but I am going to start on lettuce, cabbage, carrots and kale today with floating row covers pinned down over them for now. The cabbage will have the row covers for the summer after having bugs eat and poop to the point of not being able to eat not one of them. Do tell - I'm curious to see how they are doing. Cheers, Peggy

I just joined this forum after lurking for months. I had to write and tell you about your passion vine because the exact same thing happened to me. Guess what - you have caterpillars! Look closely and you'll see tiny, organge ones and they are eating your plant. The first bite is the translucent whitish parts and by now you should have seen big chunks taken out. Leave them be if you want butterflies or take some away to preserve the plant and still ahve butterflies. Good luck

Mine are going crazy with blooms right now, and we've been harvesting for a little over a week. So far the harvest hasn't been huge, but it has been steady. They seemed to stall on those days our high temps were in the 93-98 degree range, but now that it is a little cooler here, they are a little happier and putting out new growth and tons of blooms. I think the rain we got, which only was a half-inch, pleased them greatly. I'm hoping this week's cold front makes them even more happy. At least our sugar snap peas aren't being hailed upon, flooded or being hit by tornadoes. As long as they are still alive and rain is falling, I think they'll keep producing for a while. The wind today did beat the crap out of them. Kim, I always freeze some, but only about 1 year out of 3 do I put tons and tons of them in the freezer. Tim was out of town on business most of last week, so I didn't even pick them and take them into the house. I just picked them and munched on them while working in the garden---instant, garden-fresh fast food. In the fall, you'll probably need row cover to keep them happy long enough to produce. While they tolerate very cold temperatures, if the cold temps hit while they are blooming or about to bloom, those cold temperatures can knock the blooms right off the plants. I don't cover them up at night unless we're expecting temperatures below the mid-20s. Sometimes we get a night or two like that in late Sept or early Oct, but it is more common to get them in November. If you want to grow a variety that doesn't need to be trellised, I grew Cascadia two years ago and Sugar Lace last year, and both of them produced tons and tons of peas----more than my Super Sugar Snaps or Sugar Snaps growing on trellises were able to produce. Because we've already had high temps here hit 98 degrees a couple of times and 93-95 more often than I can believe for May, I am worrying that the green beans won't begin blooming early enough to avoid heat-related blossom drop. Instead of succession sowing some more green beans, I'm going to plant an enormous number of southern peas instead because the heat can't stop them from producing. My mind has moved beyond the warm-season crops to the hot-season crops because it seems like we have gone from the cool season to the hot season in a very brief period of time. My short day onions are bulbing up. It always happens at this time of the year, and it always catches me by surprise. I have to count backwards from now to the time I planted them, realize it is time for them to start bulbing up and say "okay, this is normal". All the cool-season plants I planted are doing better than the sugar snap peas, but that is not unusual. They are the most finicky when it comes to having 32 degree temperatures one morning and then 98 degree temperatures a day or two later. They don't like those crazy temperature swings. I get the best sugar snap pea harvest when we consistently stay cool and moist. This year cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as cool and moist---hence the sugar snap pea behavior.