Cabbage · Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
When to plant cabbages in Edmonton
Main outdoor window
22 Apr - 13 May
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
13 May
In Edmonton, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
1-31 Jul
If you plant at the start of the window.
The average last frost. Half of all years are later than this.
Step by step in Edmonton
Each window is a range, not a single day. Earlier in the range buys you a longer season; later in it buys you a safer one.
Start indoors
18 Mar - 8 Apr
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
22 Apr - 13 May
Three weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
1-31 Jul
Cabbages through the year
Against the frost risk in Edmonton
Why these dates
Spring cabbage sown in late summer and overwintered gives the earliest crop of the year. Summer and autumn types go in from an early indoor sowing.
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.
Seed packets and extension guides express timing as weeks either side of the last spring frost, because that is the only reference point that travels. Cabbages are timed from 8 weeks before that frost for an indoor start, with planting out 3 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Edmonton.
The median frost-free season here is 137 days, against 70 to 100 days to maturity for this crop counted from planting out. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Edmonton
Other vegetables to time
Growing cabbages in Edmonton
When should I plant cabbages in Edmonton?
Aim for 22 Apr - 13 May in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 1-22 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will cabbages be ready to harvest in Edmonton?
Expect to start picking around 1-31 Jul, based on 70 to 100 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will cabbages tolerate?
Hardy to about -8C, and savoy types considerably lower. Young transplants handle frost far better than most gardeners expect.