today let's
start with the planting technique
cabbage seeds can be sold directly into
the soil but I recommend that you start
your seeds indoors six to eight weeks
before transplanting your seedlings this
gives a head start to growing cabbages
I'm using a 6-cell seed starting kit
here with some perlite and peat moss as
the growing medium and these are the
cabbage seeds as you can see very tiny
just put one or two seeds per cell in
this seed starting kit and once the
seeds germinate the seedlings come out
you can transplant them into containers
or onto raised beds
now if you're growing cabbage in warm
areas like California for example where
the winters are mild you can grow
cabbages either in early spring or you
can grow them in fall or even in the
winters cabbage is a cool season crop
and it draws very well in cool
temperatures so you can see here that
after a few weeks you can see the
seedlings emerge and at this stage they
do need some liquid fertilizer you can
use a weak fertilizer like compost tea
or just use fish emulsion or seaweed or
if you're using synthetic fertilizers
use an all-purpose synthetic fertilizer
at half the dose now your seedlings will
look like this when they are ready to be
transplanted now I want to show you the
container mix that I use to grow
cabbages here is one part vermiculite
which is a high draining moisture
retaining mix and to that we add one
part compost now in my one part compost
I've also added some chicken manure that
will help add a lot of nutrients to the
soil and make sure you break up the
compost very well and to this mix I'm
gonna add one part of peat moss so
essentially what we have done is we have
added about 30 percent peat moss 30
percent compost with some manure and 30
percent vermiculite so this is a great
mix for growing cabbages during hot days
the vermiculite will help retain the
moisture in the soil and if you don't
have vermiculite or you think
vermiculite is expensive you can
substitute with perlite so once you
substitute with perlite the watering
requirements go a little higher because
perlite base container mixes dry up
quickly but the vermiculite will help
retain the moisture for the soil and now
let's look at how we
aren't our seedlings so this is a
standard 16 inch high 16 inch white
container and cabbages grow the best in
this kind of a container so if you are
looking to grow cabbages in a decently
sized container this is the container
size you should look for it has about
seven gallons of soil and I also have
some five-gallon pots here that you can
grow cabbage in and they grow very well
in these five gallon pots as well so
let's look at transplanting these
seedlings into these five gallon pots
now although you can direct sow cabbages
I highly recommend that you start your
seed so that your seedlings as you're
seeing here when you're transplanting
them they are very healthy there is no
risk of them getting
destroyed by cutworms or any other
insects because by the time the
seedlings reach this size there is a
much better chance that they will
survive whether you're planting them in
containers in raised beds or in the
ground and it also gives you a head
start into the growing season
while there are other veggies growing in
your garden you can still prepare your
seedlings and cabbages must be grown in
full Sun they need about six to eight
hours of sunlight every day and as far
as watering goes it really depends on
the temperatures in your area if you
have hot sunny days water your cabbage
plants daily but during cold winter days
or cloudy days when the soil can return
adequate moisture you need to water your
cabbage plants maybe two to three times
a week
so that's a good guideline for watering
your cabbages
now let's take a look at the different
types of cabbage you can grow in your
garden the first type of cabbage is
called the savoy cabbage the savoy
cabbage is a very different kind of
cabbage from your traditional cabbage
because it has a lot of these curly
leaves that form the cabbage now the
taste of the savoy cabbage is
distinctively different from the regular
cabbage and I like the taste of savoy
cabbage and a lot of other people do too
so as you can see here they look a lot
different than traditional cabbage but
are great to grow in your garden
and the second type of cabbage that we
will look at is the red cabbage this
cabbage comes in various varieties the
one that you're looking at right now is
called the red acre cabbage and it's a
great variety to grow in your home
garden especially in in containers and
red cabbages have more nutritional value
than traditional cabbages and the next
variety of cabbage that you can grow in
your garden are the giant variety of
cabbages and these cabbages have very
high water and fertilizer requirements
but once you do grow them successfully
they produce very large heads and taste
wise I did not like this variety a lot
it produces rather bland tasting
vegetables but some people do like the
taste as well so try growing it and see
if it is something that you like this
cabbage does produce larger heads than
traditional cabbages and some cabbages
are classified according to the shape of
their head and the one that you are
seeing right now is the longer pointed
head kind of a cabbage now this is not
really a true pointed a head variety
there are some varieties that actually
looked like a triangle almost like a
pointed head that's growing and I'll try
growing that cabbage variety as well but
this cabbage should give you an idea of
what I'm talking about
as you can see here the head looks quite
pointed and not round at all and this is
the round head cabbage and to check if
your cabbage is ready for harvest just
try to feel on the cabbage head and if
it's hard and it doesn't give in easily
they are ready for harvest now let's
look at the fertilizer requirement for
cabbages now cabbage as you can see here
is a leafy vegetable it does produce a
lot of leaves and then even the bird is
actually comprised of leaves so it needs
a high nitrogen fertilizer you can use
one of the all-purpose vegetable
fertilizers for growing cabbage I
usually mix in a lot of organic matter
in the soil when I'm growing the
cabbages and then add some fertilizer as
the plant grows so maybe every one month
or so if you are using liquid
fertilizers and then if you're using a
slow release fertilizer you can just
sprinkle them on the sides of your
cabbage at least two times during the
growing season once when you plant the
cabbages and once the cabbages have
grown for about two months or so and
we're going to be harvesting this
cabbage these cabbages were growing in
our five gallon container and as you can
see the cabbages are not huge the heads
are decently sized but please note that
if you're growing cabbages at home
you're not looking for a very big
cabbages what you're looking for is
decently sized heads that are not too
small so that you can use them as needed
in your cooking
so these cabbage heads that have formed
from these five gallon containers are
about medium sized and that is why the
five gallon container is one of the
better containers that you can use to
grow cabbage easily and we're harvesting
some more cabbage here these are again
the smaller containers the five gallon
containers and as you can see we are
getting good quality cabbage from all
these five gallon containers that we use
to grow our cabbage so all in all if
you're growing cabbage and don't have
space like raised beds or ground to grow
cabbage you can easily grow it in
containers now if your cabbage plant is
showing poor growth you need to check
two things first check the nutrients
make sure your plant is getting adequate
nutrition sunlight and water and the
next thing you want to check is your
soil pH now for cabbage the ideal soil
pH is what you see on your screen here
it's between six point five to six point
eight and using a pH tester for the soil
you can measure soil pH I will provide a
link to the product in the video
description below and now for some of
the insects that can attack your cabbage
plants here you can see cabbage a feeds
on the sides of the leaves and you can
easily get rid of them by spraying them
with soapy water or just using a water
hose to wash them off the plant
you don't really need to use any
chemicals or pesticides to control
aphids and the next type of insect is
the cabbage looper which is a chewing
kind of an insect which is commonly
found on cabbage leaves and to get rid
of it you can just handpick them or use
BT which is an organic insecticide to
get rid of this insect slugs slugs do
cause a lot of damages in cabbage plants
because they make holes in their leaves
so you can either handpick them at night
or use a snail and slug bait that
contains iron phosphate now iron
phosphate is safe for organic gardening
and this is the only snail and slug
repellent that you should use in your
garden and just sprinkle this around
your raised beds or your plants and it
will take care of the snails now let's
look at growing cabbages in raised beds
now as I mentioned earlier the more
space and the more soil you used to grow
cabbage the better and bigger the
cabbage heads turn out so in raised beds
you definitely have more soil than your
five gallon containers and here you can
see that the cabbage head is a lot
larger and this is the regular cabbage
variety it's not a giant variety but
since we have a lot of space as you can
see here there's no competition from
other plants around it and it gets all
the food nutrition and sunlight that it
needs we are producing some really good
sized cabbage heads here so as you can
see a great harvest and since this was
one of our best cabbage harvests we
thought of weighing this cabbage and
seeing how much it weighs and as you can
see here this is a four pound cabbage
it's an amazing cabbage harvest that we
got
and now for an AZ cabbage recipe
you
