We grow cabbage twice a year, in spring and in fall. Cabbage doesn’t survive winter here and summers can get hot, so fast-growing varieties work best. In terms of how to grow cabbage, I find that each cabbage variety likes to be handled a little differently. This is great because it takes me three to four seasons to use up a packet of seeds, thus allowing plenty of time to learn a variety’s special talents and quirks.
Most of our garden cabbage gets eaten fresh (I'm a fool for slaw), but I blanch the beautiful outer wrapper leaves and freeze them flat. When quickly thawed, they are great for making stuffed cabbage rolls in the middle of winter.
Depending on who you ask, pride is either a sin (St. Augustine) or a virtue (Aristotle). As a gardener, it does not feel wrong to gloat with pride over a perfect head of cabbage, but it can get you into trouble. For example, you can become so spellbound by a savoy’s crinkled leaves or the artful veins in a red head that you spend excessive time admiring them when you should be eating them. Is this what St. Augustine meant by “a love of one’s own excellence?”…Read More
cabbage white butterfly
A cabbage white butterfly sips nectar from a cluster of cilantro (coriander) blossoms. Its larvae are the dreaded imported cabbageworms, for which we use row covers, hand picking, and spinosad in all-out emergencies.
What's New in Growing Cabbage
One of the compost experiments I did in 2010 involved growing two varieties of cabbage in finished compost that was mixed with biochar in the fall and allowed to cure through winter. The plants showed little difference as potted seedlings. My report on the project appears at CompostGardening.com. ~~~
“Here’s what’s for dinner: two heads of Chinese cabbage, six new potatoes, a bulb of garlic and all the fresh herbs you care to pick.” It sounds like a setup for a Food Network reality show, but fresh food cooks face similar challenges every day. Whether the pleas to “eat me now” come from your garden, your CSA box or the bag of goodies you bought at the farmer’s market, it is a voice that must be obeyed….Read More
