One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us determine your gardening schedule is the USDA zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of figuring out when it's possible to plant chinese cabbage is to consult the USDA zone info for Santa Cruz.

Planting Calendar for Chinese cabbage

Frost tolerance for chinese cabbage:	Tolerant of some frost.
When to plant:	Up to 5 weeks before last frost.

Since chinese cabbage are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant chinese cabbage in Santa Cruz 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 chinese cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably October. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your chinese cabbage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your chinese cabbage indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is February 15 in Santa Cruz. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 25°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Santa Cruz is an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Santa Cruz you get surprised by a frost after February 15 be ready to cover your chinese cabbage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Santa Cruz

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 Low	25°F
Highest Expected Low	30°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 Santa Cruz

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Santa Cruz.