Rocket · Beijing, Beijing, China
When to plant rocket in Beijing
Main outdoor window
11-21 Mar
The window this page is built around.
Timed from last spring frost
8 April
In Beijing, on your chosen risk.
Ready to pick
10-25 Apr
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 Beijing
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.
Sow for overwintering
8-29 Aug
Counting back 59 days from your first frost so the crop matures in time.
Sow direct
11-21 Mar
Four weeks before your last frost.
Harvest
10-25 Apr
Rocket through the year
Against the frost risk in Beijing
Why these dates
Ready in a month. Sow every ten days spring and autumn; skip high summer, when it turns unpleasantly hot and bolts within weeks.
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.
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. Rocket are timed for direct sowing 4 weeks before it, and this page simply resolves those offsets against the frost date computed for Beijing.
The median frost-free season here is 203 days, against 30 to 45 days to maturity for this crop counted from sowing. That margin is what decides whether a late sowing is worth attempting.
Also in Beijing
Other vegetables to time
Growing rocket in Beijing
When should I plant rocket in Beijing?
Aim for 11-21 Mar in an average year. If you would rather not gamble on the weather, wait until 23 Mar - 2 Apr - by then frost has finished in nine years out of ten.
When will rocket be ready to harvest in Beijing?
Expect to start picking around 10-25 Apr, based on 30 to 45 days to maturity from the planting date calculated for this location.
How much frost will rocket tolerate?
Withstands -7C and holds usable leaf well into winter under cover.