Cabbage · Laixi, Shandong, China
When to plant cabbages in Laixi
Main outdoor window
18 Mar - 8 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
8 April
In Laixi, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
27 May - 26 Jun
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Laixi
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
11 Feb - 4 Mar
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Sow for overwintering
28 Jun - 19 Jul
Counting back 114 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Plant out
18 Mar - 8 Apr
Three weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
27 May - 26 Jun
Cabbages through the year
Against the frost risk in Laixi
Why these dates
Spring cabbage sown in late summer and overwintered gives the earliest crop of the year. Summer and autumn types go in from an early indoor sowing.
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Cabbages are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 3 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Laixi.
The median frost-free season here is 216 days, against 70 to 100 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Laixi
Other vegetables to time
Growing cabbages in Laixi
When should I plant cabbages in Laixi?
Aim for 18 Mar - 8 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 26 Mar - 16 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will cabbages be ready to harvest in Laixi?
Expect to start picking around 27 May - 26 Jun, based on 70 to 100 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will cabbages tolerate?
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.