Cabbage
(Brassica oleracea capitata)
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Cultivars
There appear, to our limited experience, to be so many varieties mainly because of the historical need to have crop coming in as a regular flow rather than more or less all at once.
Since we use cabbage mainly for borscht or freezing for other cooking uses, one variety of each kind (green and red) is enough. Our summmer heat, combined with our late spring frosts,
mandates--as for almost everything we grow--an early type.
For green, we have been growing, with success, the classic Early Jersey Wakefield, a reliable, productive, early (duh), and tasty heirloom. This year, though, we're
going to try instead a couple of other well-recommended types. One is an obvious cousin, the Charleston Wakefield, the other is Golden Acre; Charleston
is a litle later than Early Jersey, perhaps a week, but is said to be much larger yet of equally good quality; Golden Acre is the green counterpart of Red Acre (which, ironically, we're
moving away from this year--see below), and said to be an excellent early cabbage, if on the smaller-head side. May the best green cabbage win.
For OP red cabbages, the literature shows no clear favorite. We've never done as well with reds as with greens, so this year we're switching cultivar just to see, from Red
Acre to Red Express. Hot red cabbage salad is, as a friend of ours would put it, "pretty good stuff, mon!"
Planting
Timing
Timing is important, because cabbages much dislike heat--there's a reason Alaska is such a great producer of cabbages. Out here, one needs to grow either an early variety for
late-spring or early-summer harvest, or a "winter" type for late-fall harvest--that's why we go with tried and true early types.
Cabbage is much better started indoors as seedlings for later transplanting to their outdoors home. Since we want our cabbages in the ground as early as practicable, and since cole
plants can tolerate temperatures down to "killing freeze" levels--the low 20s or so, if we plan (as with broccoli) for planting out around April 1st we'll have our cabbages harvested by
around the end of May, when daily highs are still only in the low 70s. And that means we sow our seeds indoors around February 15th.
Starting Seedlings
Sow seed ¼ to ½ inch deep. The optimum germination soil temperature is a high 95°, so keep those seedling trays warm (ideally with a heat mat or the like); but, as
with broccoli and the other coles, once the seeds germinate, try to keep the air temperature around them moderate, circa 60° or so.
The Bed
Cabbages, like most or all brassicas, are fairly indifferent to soil type and pH, but do want well-drained soil; some sources say they prefer a slightly alkaline soil, a hair over 7.0.
They are also said to prefer a "heavy" soil, so--within reasonable bounds--clay is not a problem. And while it is reputedly not fussy about needing direct sun, direct sun is how
they grow best. They are heavy feeders, and want well-fertilized soil.
Transplanting Out
Optimum plant spacing in a deep-dug or raised bed is about the same 15 inches as for broccoli.
Growing
Again like most brassicas, cabbage prefers moist soil and doesn't mind--even likes--wet leaves, so water regularly and generously (just don't get the soil actually sodden or
waterlogged). It is quite important that their water supply be regular: cabbages experiencing dry then wet can readily crack.
Early types mature fast, and hence are prone to bursting, so harvest them promptly.
More
Relevant Links
Besides any links presented above on this page, the following ought to be especially helpful:
Odds and Ends
Biology
Cabbages are members of the Cruciferae family, Brassica genus. All crucifers are highly vulnerable to clubroot disease; the only reliable way to avoid it is crop rotation, with a
minimum four-year pattern recommended.
Saving seed from crucifers is inadvisable for the nonexpert: even the experts have problems, both with cross-breeding--crucifers very readily cross--and with disease.
Of the many other food crops closely related, a few are kale, Brussels sprouts, kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, turnips, rutabagas, watercress, and mustard.
History
The old, original Brassica oleracea ancestor is native to the Mediterranean region of Europe, and is somewhat similar in appearance to a leafy canola plant. Sometime soon
after the first domestication of plants, that ancestral "cabbage" was being grown as a leafy vegetable around the Mediterranean. Because the leaves were the part of the plant consumed,
those plants with the largest leaves were selectively propagated for next year's crop.
By the 5th century B.C., that continued preference for ever-larger leaves led to the vegetable we now know as kale (known botanically as Brassica oleracea acephala, "headless
cabbage"); kale is, of course, still grown today. But eventually some developed a taste for those plants with a tight cluster of tender young leaves in the center of the plant, at the top
of the stem, and that type, too, came to be selected for; over the centuries, that selecting led to what we think of as cabbages, which were probably a distinct type by as early as the 1st
century A.D. (That's why cabbage is Brassica oleracea capitata, "headed cabbage".)
Envoi
If you have ever envied the simple, easy life of vegetables, you can visit The Page That Turns You into a
Cabbage! (their title, not ours).
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