Growing Cabbages
I received a recent request from a gardener asking for tips on growing cabbages in the home garden. Cabbage is a cole crop that’s closely related to kale, collards, broccoli, and Brussels Sprouts.
Instead of forming loose leaves along its stem the cabbage leaves wrap around and fold over each other to form a dense head of layered leaves. Cabbages are heavy feeders and appreciate a fertile soil enriched with good compost or a balanced organic fertilizer.
Tips for Growing Delicious Cabbage Heads
Cabbages grow best during cool weather and are usually planted as a spring or fall crop to avoid growing during the heat of summer. While the cabbage seeds can be sown directly into the garden’s soil, you’ll get better results from seedlings started indoors under lights or purchased as transplants.
Plant the seeds indoors about four to six weeks before you intend to set them out into the garden. Cabbage plants are frost tolerant and can be planted in the garden very early in the spring. For a fall crop transplant the seedlings into the garden during mid to late summer depending on the variety and the recommended days to maturity.
The key to growing great cabbages is to provide a rich soil and to irrigate as required to insure that the plants have all the nutrients and moisture needed for rapid and uninterrupted growth.
Terrific Cabbage Varieties for the Home Garden
For the home gardener, and for growing cabbages in raised beds I prefer the smaller sized varieties such as Early Jersey Wakefield, Red Acre, Greyhound, Winningstadt, Cour Di Blue, and Golden Acre, which all produce sweet and tender, compact heads that can be spaced closer together in the garden.
For larger cabbages and fall harvests plant Mammoth Red Rock, Brunswick, Premium Late Flat Dutch, Copenhagen Market, or one of the many Savoy varieties such as January King, Vertus, Perfection Drumhead, or Chieftain.
Care and Harvesting of Organic Cabbages
Cabbage Worms are the main pest but they can be easily controlled organically by hand picking or through occasional applications of BT (Bacillus thuringiensis).
Heads can be harvested whenever they reach the desired size but will also hold nicely in the garden after the cabbages reach maturity.
Heads left in the garden too long will often begin to split. You can slow maturity and delay splitting by pruning the roots. Simply drive a spade into the soil around the heads to sever the roots of the growing cabbage plants.
Other Related Vegetable Gardening Posts:
April 30th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Hello, Kenny.
Just want to let you know how much I enjoy reading your logs since I discovered them a couple of days ago. I bookmarked your site and plan to visit it regularly.
Although I am not a vegetable gardener nor am I a cook, I love vegetables and someday hope to grow them myself. For now I just tend to my many houseplants and sometimes have some herbs growing inside and by my front door. Since I really know little about cooking, I just usually dream about the day when I can…hahaha.
I discovered your site when I was researching about chickweed, which I had a lot of. I was telling my son that I think the weeds that I have are edible, but he won’t let me try to eat them…bossy son.
Your site assured me that they are indeed chickweeds and edible, so I have to wait for them to grow again, and I’ll steam some. I had just pulled out A LOT of them just before I found your site 
Anyway, I can tell that you make a lot of people so happy with your website. Thank you very much. I am so hungry for some fresh vegetables after reading your log.
Be happy and healthy.
Sincerely,
Aurora
May 21st, 2007 at 10:18 am
My cabbage plants are not forming a head just lots of healthy leaves- any ideas what I need to do?
May 21st, 2007 at 8:49 pm
The healthy leaves are a good sign, just keep the cabbage plants watered and fertilized and the heads should begin to form soon, provided those really are cabbage plants and not just collard greens!
May 19th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Summer comes early in Kentucky, Can you prevent splitting heads by tying together the leaves? Thanks in advance.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Dan, I don’t think that tying the leaves will help solve your problem with the cabbages splitting or extend the time that you have to harvest them. Some growers use a sharp spade to slice straight down into the soil along a couple sides of the cabbage plant. This severs some of the plant’s roots, slows the head’s growth, and helps prevent the cabbages from splitting.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Hello,
great article.
If you want you can add it to Garlicoon, the Food & Wine network.
http://www.garlicoon.com
July 13th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Im a very novice gargener. I’ve planted some red & green cabbages and both are looking great but dont have any heads on them, just great big leaves. Have they bolted? If so what causes this. Weve had a lot of rain recently is that it?
July 13th, 2008 at 6:38 am
Hi Karen, your cabbages sound like they are doing just fine to me. Sometimes it takes a while for the heads to begin to develop, but cabbages aren’t prone to bolting as easily as other greens such as lettuces. The cabbages haven’t bolted unless the plants start developing pronounced upright growth, or the heads split and send up a stalk.
August 5th, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Could you please tell me what might be wrong with my cabbage? I planted red and green and all the green ones have something wrong with them. From the outside they look fine when you peel back the leaves instead of a large head there are seven or eight small heads about the size of a baseball. Every plant is like this.
August 5th, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Hi Angela, it sounds like your cabbage plants may have been stressed and tried to bolt or resorted to emergency growth mode. Sometimes the stems will sprout multiple heads like that after the main heads has been harvested and the plant tries to continue growing. Could the growth of your cabbage plants have been interrupted by drought or excessive heat as the plants were developing? Did you time your plantings to allow for the cabbages to grow and mature during the cooler time of year in your growing region?
January 31st, 2009 at 9:27 am
Hi. My daughter brought home 2 cabbage plants.
)
She’s in a contest. What kind of fertilizer should we use?
How often, how much water should we use?
We live in Arizona, where it’s around 69/40 degrees. We’ve already transplanted them. Do we need to cover them at night?
Thank you! We hope to grow BIG, beautiful cabbage.
February 1st, 2009 at 11:52 am
Hi Claudia, an organic fertilizer that is high in nitrogen would work well for your cabbage plants. Compost, fish emulsion, liquid seaweed, would all work well and a side dressing of earthworm castings would be great if you can find them. The frequency of fertilization will depend on how rich and healthy your soil is, but supplementing with a feeding once per month should be sufficient and a couple doses per month of an organic fertilizer would not hurt. Watering, again depends on your weather conditions and temperatures. Irrigating the cabbage plants twice a week should be plenty at those temps but water deeply when you do irrigate, and watch the moisture closely until the plants have a chance to become established outside in your garden. They should be fine without covering at night in your climate. Did you harden the plants off before transplanting? If not you may want to provide them with a little shade and a windbreak for a few days until they are better acclimated to outdoor conditions. Good luck with the contest!
February 4th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Thank you for responding so fast, Kenny.
I did harden the plants off, w/o knowing actually.
I would take them out daily so they could get some sun. They seem to be doing very well outside.
We will try all your suggestions.
Thank You!
March 5th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Hi,My son is in a contest at school and we live in florida and its going to be real hot soon the winning student has to have the tallest cabbage do you have any good tips for us so that maybe he can win there is a nice scholarship award for the winner
June 15th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Can you eat the outer cabbage leaves (like collards)?
June 16th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Hi Wendy, sure the outer cabbage leaves are perfectly edible but you might want to cook them since they are sure to be tougher and stronger flavored than the inner leaves.
June 17th, 2009 at 12:54 am
I just wanted to add that plantcycle groups also love to swap seeds for SASE or one for one trade.
Thanks for your tips on growing cabbage. I never had luck growing and cole crop except brussel sprouts one year in some muckland soil that was added to my bed.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:41 am
My third grader, several months ago, brought home a green cabbage plant which he had grown from a seed in a classroom project. We kept it on the window sill until we transplanted it to our garden a few weeks ago. While the plant got off to a slow start, it is now growing quite fast although a head has yet to form.
My son does not recall the cabbage’s variety. Would anyone know what variety of cabbage seed would probably be used in elementary school class projects?
June 29th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Tom, there are so many different varieties of cabbages that it would be difficult to even venture a guess at what cabbage your son is growing, but good luck and maybe you can take a photo when the plant matures.