When to Plant Napa cabbage in Lowell, MA

The USDA Zone info is a great tool for gardeners to help us determine 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 making a decision about when it's the best time to plant napa cabbage is to examine the USDA zone info for Lowell.


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 are very cold tolerant which means that you can get them planted much earlier than more sensitive plants.

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 Lowell 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. If you wait any later than that and your napa cabbage may not have a chance to really do well. Starting your napa 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 Lowell. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of -10°F.

Just be sure to remember that USDA zone info for Lowell is just an average and the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Since half of the time in Lowell it frosts late in the year after April 15 be ready to protect your napa cabbage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Lowell

Here is the info for USDA Zone 6a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)October 15
Lowest Expected Low-10°F
Highest Expected Low-5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is -10°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near -5°F.

Plants to Grow in Lowell

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