Growing Napa Cabbage: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 25, 2026
Napa cabbage (also called Chinese cabbage) forms a dense, barrel-shaped head of crinkled, mild-flavored leaves, the classic base for kimchi, and a sweeter, more tender alternative to standard green cabbage.
Timing the sowing
Start seed indoors 1/4 inch deep about 4 weeks before your last frost date and transplant around that date, or direct-seed instead and expect an extra 2-3 weeks to maturity. Heads are ready around 57 days from transplanting. It’s sensitive to cold snaps while young.
Avoiding the bolt
The single biggest failure mode is bolting: young plants exposed to about a week of nights below 50°F will often bolt instead of heading up, which is common in an early, unsettled spring. Because of this, many growers skip the spring planting altogether and direct-seed from late May through mid-July instead, timing heads to mature into the shortening, cooling days of fall, a much more forgiving window.
Fall crop, rotated out
Treat napa cabbage as a fall crop first and a spring crop second. It’s a heavy feeder like other brassicas, so avoid following it with cabbage, broccoli, or other cole crops in the same spot the next season.
Sources: Bilko Organic F1 Chinese Cabbage Key Growing Information, Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
Companion planting guide for Napa Cabbage (Chinese Cabbage) · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-11. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Mature height: 1 ft
Method: Either: Start indoors for an earlier harvest, or direct-sow outside for less fuss. Either works.
When to plant napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage), by zone
Every zone napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage) grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 22–Apr 29 | May 20–May 27 | Jul 16–Jul 23 |
| 3a & 3b | May 2–May 9 | May 30–Jun 6 | Jul 26–Aug 2 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 17–Apr 24 | May 15–May 22 | Jul 11–Jul 18 |
| 5a & 5bSpring window | Apr 12–Apr 19 | May 10–May 17 | Jul 6–Jul 13 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Jul 26–Aug 9 | Sep 21–Oct 5 |
| 6a & 6bSpring window | Mar 28–Apr 4 | Apr 25–May 2 | Jun 21–Jun 28 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Aug 5–Aug 19 | Oct 1–Oct 15 |
| 7a & 7bSpring window | Mar 13–Mar 20 | Apr 10–Apr 17 | Jun 6–Jun 13 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Aug 15–Aug 29 | Oct 11–Oct 25 |
| 8a & 8bSpring window | Feb 25–Mar 4 | Mar 25–Apr 1 | May 21–May 28 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Aug 31–Sep 14 | Oct 27–Nov 10 |
| 9a & 9bSpring window | Jan 18–Jan 25 | Feb 15–Feb 22 | Apr 13–Apr 20 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Sep 25–Oct 9 | Nov 21–Dec 5 |
| 10a & 10bSpring window | Jan 2–Jan 9 | Jan 30–Feb 6 | Mar 28–Apr 4 |
| Fall window | Not usually | Oct 10–Oct 24 | Dec 6–Dec 20 |
| 11a & 11bFall window | Not usually | Sep–Apr | ~57 days after planting |
Harvest dates are about 57 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Napa Cabbage (Chinese Cabbage) plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1 ft.
Good companions for napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage)
- Radish: Radish (including the daikon form) is a documented trap crop for flea beetles, which prefer its mustard oils over other brassicas and can be sacrificed or pulled once infested: the same research cited on the radish page.
Full companion guide, including what to keep away from napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage) →
Varieties worth considering
- Bilko F1 (Brassica rapa subsp. pekinensis): Johnny's Bilko is bred with slow-bolting heads plus high resistance to club root and fusarium yellows, the two traits that matter most for napa cabbage: bolting is the crop's biggest failure mode, and both diseases can persist in soil for years once established. A slightly bigger, darker-green head than a generic variety is a bonus, not the reason to pick it. (source) Buy seeds: High Mowing Organic Seeds
- 'Minuet' F1: Johnny's mini variety tops out at 9-inch heads, 2-3 pounds, ready in about 48 days from transplant, slow to bolt and resistant to downy mildew. The pick if a full-size napa head is more than your household eats before it goes soft. (source)
- 'Blues' F1: Harris Seeds lists 10-inch heads at the same fast 57 days as Bilko, with intermediate resistance to virus, downy mildew, and bacterial soft rot. A reasonable second choice if Bilko specifically isn't in stock, with a similar disease-resistance profile. (source) Buy seeds: True Leaf Market
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy napa cabbage seeds
True Leaf Market · High Mowing Organic Seeds (each supplier's napa cabbage seeds)
The varieties we recommend above each have their own buy links, for the suppliers that sell that exact variety.
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing napa cabbage (Chinese cabbage)" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Napa Cabbage (Chinese Cabbage): A mild, sweet heading cabbage that does best timed for cool fall weather rather than a cold spring.
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