When to Plant Napa cabbage in Riverside, CA

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us figure out your gardening schedule. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of estimating when it's possible to plant napa cabbage is to use the USDA zone info for Riverside.


Planting Calendar for Napa cabbage

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

Since napa cabbage are very cold tolerant you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Legend 
A good time to plant napa cabbage
Possibly ok, but a risky time to plant napa cabbage
Probably not a good time to plant napa cabbage

The earliest that you can plant napa cabbage in Riverside is January. However, you really should wait until February if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant napa cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably October. Any later than that and your napa cabbage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. If you are starting your napa cabbage indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on February 15 in Riverside. It might get as low as 25°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Riverside may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Riverside you get a frost after February 15 be ready to protect your napa cabbage if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Riverside

Here is the info for USDA Zone 9b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)February 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)December 15
Lowest Expected Low25°F
Highest Expected Low30°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 25°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 30°F.

Plants to Grow in Riverside

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