Cabbage

Flat Dutch Cabbage

MMMmm, cabbage and bacon drippings slow cooking in a cast iron dutch oven invoke childhood memories and the jokes that would come later! Cabbage is a beautiful cool weather plant that has the ability to feed a large family during times when fresh produce is in limited supply. The choices are quite wide: red, green, white, flat, round, pointed, smooth, crinkly, savoy, heading, and non-heading. So how do you get the cabbage in the pan? Cabbage, and other cruciferous vegetables, may be planted in spring or fall, usually 2-6 weeks before the last frost date or 6-12 weeks before the first frost date. I recommend starting out with healthy starts that are recommended for your zone, especially if you are in the south, you may not have time to sow the seeds in the garden before the heat sets in and ruins your crop. If you are in cooler zones self-sowing is most likely an option, just count out the ‘days to maturity’ located on the seed packet and plant when it will mature before the temps become consistently over 50-60 degrees or in the case of fall planting, before the temperatures are consistently below freezing. Most cabbages take 70-120 days to maturity. Soil amendment is high priority as cabbages are heavy feeders and prone to rot and head splitting. Good soil will have excellent tilth with rich organic matter that keeps the soil like a damp sponge, or moist and earthy like the forest floor after pulling back the top leaves. The soil shouldn’t be heavy and water logged or sandy and dry. It should have organic matter such as chopped up leaves, rotted manure (rabbit is my favorite), humus, compost, straw (especially old straw that was maybe once animal bedding), shredded black and white newspaper and cardboard, coffee grounds, egg shells, fruit and veggie kitchen scraps, cotton burr compost, etc. These things should be rotted and mixed in with the soil until they are hardly recognizable. Add soft rock phosphate for calcium and phosphorous, greensand for potassium, and bat guano or worm castings for nitrogen. All these amendments can be tweaked as long as you have a source of N-P-K, and heavy on the phosphorous and easy on the nitrogen. Plant the cabbage seedlings according to the spacing directions and if it says 30 inches apart don’t be tempted to squeeze them in tighter, they will fill in with proper care! ‘The farmer who sows lightly reaps heavy, the farmer who sows heavy reaps lightly.” Plant 3-4 per person in your household, or 6-8 if you plan on freezing or making sourkrout. A drip source irrigation makes for easier gardening and higher quality heads with less splitting. Mulch well with straw, and loosely cover with more straw or a cloche if temps are going to fall below 20. Decrease watering as heads mature to prevent splitting. If you have a very rainy season pull your mulch back on sunny days to prevent rotting, maybe even add some sand around the base. Harvest when heads are tight and at least 4 inches in diameter. Cut at the base leaving a few leaves and the roots and give the cabbage an opportunity to make another head. If you have a heavy freeze coming or the heat is about to set in, harvest most of your crop and wait, watch, and learn with at least one cabbage of each variety you planted. You may be surprised how well cabbage can withstand a freeze, it is quite fascinating to watch a frozen plant defrost and come back alive as the day warms up, or it may not. They have the ability to move water out of their cells for a short period of time, allowing for their continued survival. Special vigilance must be paid attention to pest, especially in the spring. The cabbage worm is easily controlled with DE mixed with BT (Bacillus Thuringiensis), which is a biologic insecticide and is harmless to most beneficials and all mammals. Letting wasp hang around are also very useful for caterpillar control. Aphids sometimes attack cabbages control options can be found on my organic pesticide post.