One of the first steps you take when you are estimating your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

One way of determining when it's the best time to plant savoy cabbage is to examine the USDA zone info for West Chicago.

Planting Calendar for Savoy cabbage

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

Since savoy cabbage do well in cold you can plant them quite a bit earlier in the year than other plants that might not handle the cold.

The earliest that you can plant savoy cabbage in West Chicago 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 savoy cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your savoy cabbage may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your savoy cabbage indoors is a great way to get them started a few weeks earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on April 15 in West Chicago. It might get as low as -15°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for West Chicago is just an average the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Since half of the time in West Chicago you get surprised by a frost after April 15 be ready to protect your savoy cabbage if you have a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for West Chicago

Here is the info for USDA Zone 5b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	-15°F
Highest Expected Low	-10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -15°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -10°F.

Plants to Grow in West Chicago

You may be interested in your other planting guides for West Chicago.