You haven’t yet succeeded in making your cabbage heads compact like how they are in the store and supermarket? Things will change if you learn how to grow cabbage: from planting seeds to harvesting with me! I will tell you all your need to know about planting cabbages and how to grow their heads as large as possible. After all, this species is 95% water.
Overview
Level of difficulty: Relatively easy
Nutrition: Cabbages are wonderful healthy greens since they contain various minerals, vitamins, and nutrients. Eating cabbages will support heart health, blood pressure, healthy digestive system and mitigate inflammation. You can find components like vitamins C, B1, and B6. Dietary fiber also is a major component that promotes digestion.
With that said, consuming this vegetable daily is okay, but not in excessive amounts. Avoid eating half a cabbage head daily because this will accumulate too much fiber in your system and induce gas to escape. You won’t want to be a human tractor! Not just cabbage but any vegetable high in fiber should be consumed moderately, like broccoli, carrot, or beets.
Height: Cabbages can grow up to 14 inches, quite tall but not impossible to grow in a pot or indoors. With that said, it’s still more favorable for their growth when we sow the veggies in an open garden.
Time to mature: If you plan to grow the crop from seeds, it will definitely take longer, from 120 to 150 days, for it to mature entirely and be ready for harvest. Yes, the process is lengthy but not tricky. You can enjoy sweet, fresh, and hydrating leaves in no time.
Season to sow: Cabbages are divided into categories in this aspect.
- Spring cabbage: sown in late summer, July to August, and harvested in spring
- Summer cabbage: sown in late winter throughout spring, from February to late April, and harvested in summer
- Autumn and winter cabbage: sown in mid to late spring, from April to May, and harvested in autumn or winter
Lifespan: Cabbages are biennial and will produce vegetables in the first year and flowers in the second. Most farmers grow them as annual crops unless they want to harvest quality seeds for the next cabbage season as well.
Choose Your Cabbage Cultivar
- Tiara cabbage: Despite their small sizes, Tiara cabbages pack tons of leaves and are 3 pounds heavy. You can enjoy their mildly sweet flavor with both crunchy and tender leaf parts. This variety is usually sown in late winter to early spring or mid-summer.
- Red cabbage: If you have tried red cabbage, you may notice that the texture is entirely different from the green ones. Try growing red cabbages if you love a crunch and mildly sweet flavor. Farmers usually sow this crop in late winter or early spring.
- Ruby Perfection cabbage: Another red cabbage hybrid with a crunchy texture. The giant heads can grow as heavy as 4 pounds. Isn’t that impressive?
- Pe-tsai cabbage: The variety is commonly known as Chinese cabbage. The flavor of this one is significantly sweeter than most green cabbage varieties I have tried. When it’s cooked, the sweetness is greatly enhanced, while the texture becomes much softer than when it’s raw. Raw Chinese cabbages are used widely in making kimchi (a Korean dish). The crop is sown from late summer to mid-autumn.
- Famosa cabbage: This green variety is easy to grow and produces soft leaves with a total weight of 2 to 4 pounds. You can sow them from mid to late spring.
Preparation
- Cell flat tray
- Scissors or a pruning shear
- Fertilizers: balanced fertilizer (5-5-5 or 10-10-10) and nitrogen-rich fertilizer (27-3-3, 15-9-2, or other cabbage-loving products)
- Soil: loam,
How To Grow Cabbage: From Planting Seeds To Harvesting
Allow me to instruct you on how to grow cabbage: from planting seeds to harvesting for a successful crop!
Germination
From my experience, it’s not obligatory to germinate the seeds in a paper towel and introduce them later to natural garden soil. They can readily germinate in a clean soil blend!
Step 1: Soak the seeds in water for 6 to 8 hours so that they get hydrated and have a better chance of sprouting.
Step 2: Prepare your cell flat tray with the soil blend that I recommended. Of course, don’t hesitate to add limestone or peat moss to balance the pH level to between 6.5 – 7.5, the ideal range for making cabbages thrive.
Step 3: Make a shallow hole of 1.5-2 inches in each cell flat. Each hole equals one seed and one plant.
Step 4: Sow the seeds and cover them with the same soil. Don’t build up a thick layer of soil. Simply fill the holes only. Then, water the soil until damp but not oversaturated. Regarding sunlight, place the tray next to a window sill. The seeds haven’t required a sun-rich diet yet at this phase.
Step 5: After 5 to 7 days, you should see them sprouting already. Make sure that you water daily in small amounts. The watering style will change to deep and infrequent after transplantation, though. Allow the cabbage seeds to sit in the cell flats for 2 weeks, more or less, before transplanting. They should be at least 2.5 to 3 inches when you decide to move the seedlings to the new home – garden beds or pots.
Seedlings transplantation to containers or garden beds
When the seedlings have grown to 3 inches, it’s time to move them to separated containers or garden lots with strategic spacing.
Step 1: Lift the plants from the cell flats from the bottom in order not to break the young stalks.
Step 2: If the soil around the roots has become compact, use a brush or your finger to remove the outer layer lightly. You don’t have to loosen the soil entirely, but the action will help it blend better with the new soil in the garden bed or pots.
Step 3: Measure the length of the root system and dig a hole 1 inch deeper than that. This will maintain the entire roots underground and a part of the stalk.
Step 4: Water around the stalk to blend the 2 layers of old and new dirt attached to the roots. After 2 weeks, feed the plants with a balanced fertilizer to promote healthy root, leaf, and stem growth.
Adult plant
The maturing process of your cabbage crop after transplantation will consist of cupping, early heading, and maturing.
Starting from cupping, the plants already start forming center leaves that curve inward to form a classic cabbage head that we all know and love. From then on, the process repeats until the heads mature entirely to their cultivars’ average size.
During the cupping period, which occurs about 60 days after seed sowing, you should switch from a balanced fertilizer to a nitrogen-rich one to promote leafy growth and tighter head formation. Also, keep up with the irrigation schedule to avoid drought stress and overwatering.
Hand-pollinating indoor trees/ Outdoor pollination
Cabbages belong to the Cole family, so they are self-unfruitful. You will need broccoli, cauliflower, or kale pollen to pollinate the cabbage flowers. On the other hand, this process serves the seed harvesting purpose instead of assisting head formation, so you don’t have to do it if your purpose is consuming only.
Harvest
It’s pretty straightforward, even for beginners. When the cabbage heads have reached their optimum size between 3 to 10 inches, depending on the variety, and they have a firm texture, it’s time to harvest.
Use a pruning shear to cut off the entire plant as close to the ground as possible. Then, peel off or cut off the leaves, starting from the outer layers. Keep going until you see a compact round head.
How To Care For Your Cabbage Crop
From sun exposure to fertilizer, I will guide you on how to take care of your cabbages!
Light, light, light
Yes, it’s another full-sun crop. Cabbages love bathing in sunlight at least 6 hours a day and are tolerant to partial shade. The sun plays a huge part during the entire growing process of the species, from forming healthy leaves to making the heads large.
Can cabbages get too much sun? Yes and no. If they get over 12 hours of sun daily and the weather is hot, the texture will become too crunchy and dry. Overall, not favorable for consumption. But the plants will still thrive properly if the temperature is still within the cool range between 60 to 70oF.
Temperature for this cool-season crop
As a cool-season crop, cabbages love a consistent temperature between 60 to 70oF. When the temp drop lower than 40-50oF, the plants are likelier to bolt instead of forming a pretty head. Same as that, the texture of the cabbages is affected by hot heat waves, and the plants may also bolt. The same goes for cold and frosty weather.
Watering right will allow the cabbage heads to form
Why don’t my cabbages form heads? This question bothered me a lot the first few times I attempted to plant my own cabbage crops. Now, I know why I didn’t succeed back then.
Since cabbages contain a lot of water (over 90%), they also need a deep watering diet for leafy growth. And only when they consistently receive deep and infrequent irrigation will they form compact cabbage heads like the ones we see in supermarkets or local markets. Too frequent soaking will cause the plants to bolt in the first year.
Allow the soil to dry about a bit between watering days, but don’t leave it dry to the touch. The first inch should feel a bit moist before you hydrate the plants. Drought stress isn’t favorable for the crops’ health as the heads will likely crack when a bath in the water later on.
The irrigation style also is very important because despite loving deep watering, cabbages don’t need tons of water sitting on top of them to promote leaf rot, bugs, or other fungal invasions. I heavily suggest focusing on the soil around the cabbage instead of the balls of leaves themselves.
Best soil for your cabbage crop
What are the requirements for cabbages’ soil?
- Well-drained
- Water-retentive
- Neutral pH level between 6 and 7
- Rich with compost or well-rotted manure
So how do you prepare it? Just make sure that your soil blend contains natural garden soil, loam, compost or well-rotted manure, and clay. Loam and clay will support each other to augment the water-retentive ability and drainage. At the same time, compost and garden soil will add a bit of a natural growing environment with nutrients.
Diseases that cabbages may encounter
Black rot, powdery mildew, leaf spot, cracked head, and bottom rots are some common diseases that your cabbage crop may encounter. Overwatering or unfavorable temperatures usually are the major reasons why these diseases appear, so make sure that your crop is living in the best condition, as I suggest.
If your plants already manifest the complications, spray them with a gentle fungicide to kill the fungi and bugs early. If left too long, even using chemical products won’t resuscitate the greens.
Fertilizer: When, which, and how?
2 weeks after transplanting, cabbages prefer a gentle diet with a balanced fertilizer of 10-10-10 NPK ratio. 3 to 4 weeks after that, switch to a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to promote healthy leafy growth. Use products with 27-3-3 or 15-9-12 NPK ratio, and the heads will get heavier with layers of foliage.
How and when to prune your cabbage
You don’t typically have to prune your cabbage unless it’s necessary. Consider this activity when the lower leaves are riding close or touching the ground. Cutting them, alongside yellow and damaged leaves, will allow the nutrients in the cabbage plants to focus on spawning new foliage or bulging the cabbage heads.
Use a pair of scissors or pruning shear to cut off all unwanted leaves, but never remove them all, especially the top leaves. They play a huge role in sending nutrients to the roots so they can convert energy and grow other important parts, aka the edible heads.
