Planting Cabbage

It’s that time of year again, time to plant cool weather crops. Cabbage is one of those crops. This year we are planting two different varieties. The first I have started from seed and that is Golden Acre Cabbage, from Annie’s Heirloom Seeds. The second is Hilton Chinese Cabbage from Rare Seeds.

Golden Acre Cabbage

I started this variety February 11, which is a little early, but they look great. We are transplanting them in ground with row covers both for weather protection as well as pest problems that we deal with every year. We are using an insect cover from Agfabric and a heavy weight cover, also from Agfabric, over the insect cover. I am using the insect cover to save myself time when we take the weather cover off. It will already be in place, and I will not have to deal with covering them two times.

We choose a location in the garden that gets plenty of sunlight. I amended the soil with composted manure that we get from a local farmer. This has been sitting since last spring. I will then mix in Bio-Tone fertilizer from Espoma. This is an all-natural starter fertilizer that I have been using for 2 years now and I really love the results. I only use this at planting and fertilize with Garden Tone if I need to add additional fertilizers later in the season. After amending the soil, plant the cabbages 18″- 24″ apart and give them a generous drink of water. This variety has a maturity time of around 60 days.

Hilton Chinese Cabbage

The next variety I will be direct sowing because that is the preferred method. The variety is Hilton Chinese Cabbage, and this cabbage has a maturity time of about 45 days. It prefers the daytime temps to be around 60-70 degrees with a low temp at night of no lower than 40 degrees. We will be planting them 15″-18″ apart which is shorter than the Golden Acre, but this is due to the tall nature of the plant growth. We are waiting a while to plant this one, but I will use the same method as with the Golden Acre Cabbage, using the Bio-Tone fertilizer and amending the soil. I will also use row covers to prevent the pest problem. I am planting this crop mainly for my Kimchi. Check out the recipe for this and the different ways of preserving vegetables with fermentation.

If you are starting cabbage from seed, you will want to do this 6- 8 weeks before your last frost date which you can find on the Farmer’s Almanac website. This is a great resource for this, simply put in your zip code and it gives you the dates as well as your planting zone.  Hope you found something in this article useful if so leave me a comment and Happy Planting!