When to Plant Napa cabbage in Adel, IA

One of the best tools that you have as gardeners to help us figure out 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 getting a good idea when it's a good idea to plant napa cabbage is to look at the USDA zone info for Adel.


Planting Calendar for Napa cabbage

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

Napa cabbage do well in pretty solid cold which means that you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than plants that are more sensitive to 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 Adel is February. However, you really should wait until March 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 September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your napa cabbage may not have a chance to fully mature. 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

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Adel. It might get as low as -20°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Adel may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost is different every year. Since half of the time in Adel there is a last frost after April 15 be ready to protect your napa cabbage in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Adel

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-20°F
Highest Expected Low-15°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -20°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -15°F.

Plants to Grow in Adel

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