How to Have Cabbages Year-Round, Grown from Your Home Garden

Enjoy healthful home-grown cabbages from early spring through winter. Learn how from the 1888 book Gardening for Pleasure, by Peter Henderson.

Old Time Cabbage Illustration

Of this vegetable two distinct crops are raised in every garden; many gardeners, by successive sowings and the use of several varieties, have them fit for use constantly from early spring until fall, and throughout the entire winter by storage.

Early or Summer Cabbages - The seed for these should be sown in a hotbed from the lst to the 15th of February. As soon as the plants are large enough to set out they should be given plenty of air, and should be gradually hardened off until they are able to stand the cool nights without protection; but they should not be allowed to freeze. Treated in this way they will be ready for planting out as soon as the ground can be worked. In making this sowing I would have it of two kinds--some of a small, hard-headed, early variety, and about twice as many of a larger-heading summer kind.

These early cabbages need very little care except to have frequent and thorough cultivation, as they are comparatively free from insect pests as long as they make a healthy growth. If attacked by the black fly or green worm, they should be dusted with plaster early in the morning, while the dew is still on them. The soil around these and all other crops that depend on quick growth for their superior qualities, must not only be cultivated, to kill the weeds, but must be kept loose and well stirred, to admit the air to the roots of the plants; it must not be allowed to lie heavy and packed after dashing rains, but should be stirred up as soon as dry enough. The rows may be as close as can be worked with the cultivator, say about three feet, and the plants about one and a half feet apart in the row, or even closer, if the variety grown makes but small heads.

Late or Winter Cabbage - As soon as the ground becomes warm in the spring, or early in May, a seed bed should be made and sown with the late varieties of cabbage and celery, or the seed may be sown in drills in the garden; the seed being sown in very thinly, so as to produce plants standing about half an inch apart in the row. Where it can be done, it is best to sow the seed in a special bed or cold frame, where they can be watered and nursed to a good size by the time they are wanted for planting.

It is important to get the seed sown early, that the plants may be had of good size by the middle of June, though they will make a partial crop if planted as late as the middle of August. As these varieties make larger heads than the summer cabbages, they cannot be planted so closely; the rows should be 3 to 3 1/2 feet apart, and the plants 2 to 2 1/2 feet apart in the rows. These can be planted and grown between the rows of early peas, corn or potatoes; but I would prefer to wait until the first crop of corn be cleared off the ground, as it can then be brought into much better condition. It adds greatly to the labor of harvesting the first crop when the ground is so closely planted, and the soil is apt to become hard and packed before it can be cultivated again.

When possible, the young cabbage plants should be set out directly before or after a good rain, but if there is no prospect of rain, they should be planted in the evening and a tin cupful of water should be poured in each hole before the plant is set in; then draw the dry earth up around the stem and pack firmly around the plant; this will enable them to withstand at least a week of dry weather. If the drought should continue longer, or they do not come up fresh in the morning after a flagging day, they must be watered in the cool of the evening, when the plant will have the benefit of the water all night. It is waste of time to water them while the hot sun is shining, unless they can be shaded with papers, old pans, etc.

As soon as they become well established, the soil around them must be carefully loosened and cultivation begun. To obtain the best results they must be cultivated frequently and deeply. It is a common sight in some gardens to see the cabbage with stems two feet high and a small bunch of wormy leaves at the top; a closer examination will show that the soil is hard and trampled, and that the plants have been left to grow as best they may, while in the well-cultivated garden the stems short and the heads are large and solid.

This is part of an article from the book The Kitchen Garden Guide