One of the first steps you take when you are getting a good idea 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 estimating when it's a good idea to plant chinese cabbage is to use the USDA zone info for Dexter.

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 do well in moderate cold you can plant them a little bit earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chinese cabbage in Dexter 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 chinese cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your chinese cabbage may not have a chance to really do well. You can get started a little bit earlier by starting your chinese cabbage indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Dexter. It might get as low as 0°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Dexter is an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Dexter last frost occurs after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your chinese cabbage in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Dexter

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	0°F
Highest Expected Low	5°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 0°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 5°F.

Plants to Grow in Dexter

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