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.

A common way of estimating when you can plant chinese cabbage is to use the USDA zone info for Charlotte.

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 are one of those plants that can tolerate a little bit of cold weather you can plant them a little earlier in the year than other frost tender plants.

The earliest that you can plant chinese cabbage in Charlotte 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. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your chinese cabbage may not have a chance to really do well. If you are starting your chinese cabbage indoors then you might be able to get away with starting them a little bit earlier.

Last Frost Date

On average the last frost has passed is on March 15 in Charlotte. It might get as low as 10°F during the coldest months of winter.

Since the USDA zone info for Charlotte may not be accurate from year to year the actual date of last frost changes from year to year. Half of the time in Charlotte there is a last frost after March 15 so just be sure to be ready to cover your chinese cabbage if you have one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Charlotte

Here is the info for USDA Zone 8a.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	March 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	November 15
Lowest Expected Low	10°F
Highest Expected Low	15°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 15°F.

Plants to Grow in Charlotte

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