Fall-Planted Cabbage

Nothing beats clomping out to the garden in a November drizzle to cut a fresh cabbage for homemade vegetable soup. It feeds the soul as well as the family. It’s only possible of course, if the clomping, knife-wielding gardener planted cabbage – available from local garden centers — for late-autumn harvest.

Although there are several good fall veggie possibilities, including cool-weather greens like kale, lettuces, and spinach — one of the best and easiest to grow is cabbage.  One reason is its hardiness — especially the coarse-leafed, tightly-packed heading types, the green or red commonly used in cole slaw. They can get hit with frost in the mid-20’s a number of times and be fine.

“Frost sweetens up cabbage,” says Jon Traunfeld, vegetable specialist at the Maryland Cooperative Extension, University of Maryland Home and Garden Information Center.

Like heading cabbages, the non-heading loose-leaf varieties, (Chinese cabbage, pak choi, celery mustard and Chinese mustard) grow better in the shorter, cooler days of autumn than during the long hot summer days when they tend to bolt (go to seed). However, the loose-leaf are more frost-tender than heading types.

Cabbage, which came to the New World in 1541 with Jacques Cartier, was a colonial staple since it’s good raw, cooked, pickled in kimchi or turned into sauerkraut and is packed with vitamins like the scurvy-preventative vitamin C.  It belongs to the mustard family (Cruciferae) in the genus Brassica, which includes broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and others.  Although virtually all brassicas prefer cool weather, the shorter-season fast-growing varieties are best for fall planting. They take about 67 days to grow to full size, though you can use them sooner.  On the other hand, you can direct-seed leaf varieties, which reach full size in about 53 days, and if it turns cold early, you can clip them for salads and stir-fries before they mature. Floating row cover can give the seedlings a little protection from marauding critters.

Cabbages, like many annual vegetables, are heavy feeders. Dig in manure, compost, fish emulsion, seaweed extract or other organic fertilizer before planting and then fertilize with an organic food two or three times during growth.  Once fertilized, the main thing is to keep them watered, especially in the first couple of weeks when seedlings and young sprouts are most vulnerable.

Warm Red Cabbage Salad: In olive oil, stir-fry a chopped head of red cabbage. Add grated fresh garlic and cook until the cabbage is just tender. Splash in some balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, then turn this into a bowl and add a chopped apple, a bunch of chopped parsley, Feta or soft goat cheese, and toasted walnuts (you can spread them on a cookie sheet and bake for about 10 minutes at 350 or toast dry in an iron pan). Lovely for lunches or snacks.