Cabbage · Harbin, Heilongjiang, China
When to plant cabbages in Harbin
Main outdoor window
7-28 Apr
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
28 April
In Harbin, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
16 Jun - 16 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 Harbin
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
3-24 Mar
Eight weeks before your last frost, under cover or on a windowsill.
Plant out
7-28 Apr
Three weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
16 Jun - 16 Jul
Cabbages through the year
Against the frost risk in Harbin
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 Harbin.
The median frost-free season here is 162 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 Harbin
Other vegetables to time
Growing cabbages in Harbin
When should I plant cabbages in Harbin?
Aim for 7-28 Apr in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 14 Apr - 5 May - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will cabbages be ready to harvest in Harbin?
Expect to start picking around 16 Jun - 16 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.