One of the first steps you take when you are determining 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.

In East Chicago you can figure out when it's the best time to plant cabbage by using the USDA zone info.

Planting Calendar for Cabbage

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

Cabbage do well in moderate cold which tells us that you can plant them a little bit earlier than more sensitive plants.

The earliest that you can plant cabbage in East 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 cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your cabbage may not have a chance to fully mature. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your cabbage indoors.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost is on April 15 in East Chicago. You can expect an average low temperature of -15°F in the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for East Chicago may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in East Chicago there is a last frost after April 15 so be sure to be ready to protect your cabbage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for East 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 East Chicago

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