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.

It's possible to determine when it's a good idea to plant red cabbage by referring to the USDA zone info for Schenectady.

Planting Calendar for Red cabbage

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

Red cabbage can survive in cold weather which tells us that 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 red cabbage in Schenectady 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 red cabbage and expect a good harvest is probably September. You probably don't want to wait any later than that or else your red cabbage may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a few weeks earlier by starting your red cabbage indoors.

Last Frost Date

The average date of last frost is April 15 in Schenectady. In the coldest months of winter you should expect an average low temperature of -15°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Schenectady is just an average the actual date of last frost can change quite a bit from year to year. Half of the time in Schenectady you get a frost after April 15 so make sure that you are prepared to protect your red cabbage in the event of one of those late frosts.

USDA Zone Info for Schenectady

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 Schenectady

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