TIPS GROWING CABBAGE
delicious and healthy cabbage very
easily in your garden I always recommend
growing cabbage from seed the reason for
starting cabbages from seeds is that you
can not only get a head start to grow
cabbage but also the fact that cabbage
transplants very easily so cabbage being
a cool season crop you would generally
start it a little bit before the fall
season about 6 weeks before the fall
season in your area you can also start
cabbages in early spring and it grows
great through early summer so once the
seedlings emerge you can grow up to 2
seedlings in a container of this size or
if you are using a 16 inch container
I would advise growing just one plant
per container
if you plant the seedlings too close you
will end up getting smaller heads of
cabbage as you will see towards the end
of this video and if you're growing in
raised beds
I would advise growing about nine
cabbages in a four by four foot bed now
one of the most common predators for
cabbage is the cabbage fly which is
actually a butterfly that lays its eggs
inside the cabbage plant which results
in caterpillars or loopers or cabbage
worms that eat the cabbage plant and can
cause a lot of devastation so to counter
that the easiest method that you see
here that I've used is to keep a net
around the cabbage which will prevent
the cabbage fly from entering the
cabbages now you can see a little bit of
damage that was done earlier when the
net wasn't put on the cabbage but as
soon as I put the nuts on the cabbage it
made no difference to the cabbages that
were growing
but the cabbage fly was never able to
fly and enter into the cabbages so I
never got any more caterpillars however
if you do see cabbage loopers or cabbage
worms you need to use either neem oil or
BT which is a naturally occurring
bacteria which will help protect your
cabbage plants however rather than
spraying anything I would highly
recommend that you try to use a net
which is a very effective in protecting
your cabbage plants now cabbage has a
very long growing season so once you
plant your cabbage seeds it might take
up to four months for the cabbage heads
to start forming and once the cabbage
heads form what you need to do is just
feel around the head of the cabbage to
make sure that the head is firm if the
heads are not firm the cabbage is not
formed yet so just feel a little bit
around the head of the cabbage and if it
feels solid to the touch that's the time
you can start harvesting your cabbage
so we're going to go ahead and harvest
this cabbage it's formed a decent-sized
head and it's also firm to the touch
now cabbage requires full Sun at least
six to eight hours so make sure you're
growing your cabbage in a sunny area so
that you get really good cabbage heads
and if your cabbage is not forming big
heads it usually means that the
temperatures in your area have warmed up
and cabbage needs a cool season like
early spring or fall season to really
form good heads so for this raised bed
the cabbage that I've grown have grown
pretty well and as you can see the heads
are pretty well sized let's take a
closer look here so this is a pretty
decent sized cabbage now most of your
heads should be around this size but if
you get smaller sized heads it's usually
because they have been placed too close
and as you can see some of these heads
are not very big in size because of the
placement I placed a lot more cabbages
then I should have and as you can see
this one again is pretty firm so we'll
go ahead and harvest this one now as far
as fertilizer goes I've added a lot of
compost into this raised bed and I've
used a liquid fertilizer every two weeks
for this cabbage area and it seemed to
do a good job in growing great cabbages
for me on this raised bed so as you can
see this is again a great looking
cabbage head cabbages are very healthy
for you it tastes great in salads and
even cooked and this fun also feels very
firm to the touch so we will go ahead
and harvest this cabbage as well and as
you will see here this cabbage head is
not as big as the other cabbage heads
that we harvested and that's again
because of the spacing between the
cabbages so when you plant cabbages it
might not be very obvious but cabbages
grew to a very large size and which is
why it is very important that you space
out your cabbage as well so this is an
example of a small cabbage head but it's
also very delicious and fresh compared
to the supermarket cabbage now there's
other variety of cabbage called the
giant cabbage and I have done a video on
this cabbage variety in one of my
earlier videos which you can see by
clicking on this screen link which you
see and once again even for this giant
cabbage variety I am growing only one
cabbage plant per the 16 inch container
and it grows pretty fast as well now the
giant cabbage is just like the other
cabbage varieties that you see however
the heads that it forms are much wider
and larger compared to the regular
cabbage varieties now as you can see
here you have some insect damage on this
cabbage plant and I did not use any can
of insecticides or pesticides on this
cabbage plant and what happened was that
the cabbage fly came and laid some eggs
on the leaves of this plant and you can
see that this plant has quite a lot of
damage to its leaves I really didn't
think this cabbage plant would survive
after all the damage and this is why I
would again like to stress the
importance of using the net to prevent
the cabbage fly from coming and laying
eggs on your cabbage but as you can see
here as the cabbage plant grows and
starts forming the head you can see that
the insect damage becomes less prevalent
and starts to disappear as the cabbage
starts forming its head even further and
at this stage the head is just begin to
form
and at this stage it is critical that
you continue to fertilize your plant to
make sure that you're meeting the plants
and nutritional requirements
now this giant cabbage is growing in
about 90% of compost I used about 90%
compost 10% of potting soil and I
realized that by using a lot of compost
I was able to grow a lot of great
cabbage now this was planted on the 21st
of October and as you can see it has
grown pretty well it needed some support
because it was getting very heavy and
which is where I just used to stake to
secure it and you can see here I'm again
going to touch and feel whether this
cabbage head is formed before deciding
whether to harvest it so it's now time
to harvest this plant and let's look at
how our harvest looks like now the giant
cabbage as you can see forms a really
big canopy a lot of leaves and when you
actually harvest the cabbage the head of
the cabbage is actually much smaller
than the canopy it forms now you can
actually eat the other leaves of the
cabbage the ones that I am removing
right now they taste a little different
though from the cabbage itself so it's
up to you whether you want to eat those
leaves or toss it into your compost pile
so whether you're growing the regular
cabbage variety or the giant cabbage
variety growing your own cabbage is a
rewarding experience so I want to know
from you do you grow cabbage and what is
your favorite variety of cabbage to grow
to let me know your thoughts and
opinions and I'll see you again soon
happy gardening
