Barbara Pleasant: Growing Garden Cabbage

The more I get to know cabbage varieties, the more 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, 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 do ferment small batches of sauerkraut. Another preservation idea: blanch the beautiful outer leaves of your garden cabbage, and freeze them flat. When quickly thawed, they are great for making stuffed cabbage rolls.                                                                                

Cut and Come Again Cabbage

One of the neat things about spring cabbage is this: cut the first heads high on the stem, and a cluster of nice-sized secondary heads will grow from the stump, somewhat like giant brussels sprouts. You can grow cut and come again cabbage in the fall, too, though new growth slows to a crawl as fall turns to winter.

The cut and come again cabbage technique works best in early summer, practiced on plants that still have some spring vigor left in them. In hotter weather, the cabbage will cut and come again, but the secondary heads may be below ground, as pale nubby heads encrusted with soil. Interesting but inedible without a lot of washing.

This is a unique aspect of growing garden cabbage that should be more widely practiced. When things go well, you can double per plant productivity by growing cabbage cut-and-come-again style.

More Pleasant Reading on Cabbage

Corrupted by Cabbage at GrowVeg.com, October 9, 2009

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  

Beyond Cut and Come Again Cabbage

Crops that come back from left-behind roots and stems are called ratoons. Ratoon cropping is often used when growing rice and sugar cane, and it can work in your garden, too. See my blog at GrowVeg from 2009:

 Are There Ratoons in Your Garden?

Cooking In Season: Cabbage and Potatoes at MotherEarthNews.com,

June 18, 2008

“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

What's New in Growing Cabbage