Growing cabbages | 4Food

Growing Guides How to grow cabbages

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Grow your own cabbage

Cabbages are popular and versatile vegetables grown for their compact leafy hearts.

The leaves can be shredded onto salads, boiled, steamed and stir-fried to accompany meat and vegetarian dishes or transformed into a healthy soup.

They are easy to raise from seed sown outdoors and classified as spring, summer, autumn or winter cabbages according to their harvesting time.

A packet of cabbage seeds and plant labels
A seed tray and seed compost (for raising seedlings under cover only)
A general organic fertiliser, some organic liquid fertiliser and well-rotted manure
A spade for digging over the vegetable plot and a hoe for weeding
A rake for preparing the seed bed
A watering can
A length of string with pegs at each end for marking out individual rows
A short stick for creating seed drills (shallow grooves made in the surface of the soil)
A ruler for marking out planting distances
A hand trowel for transplanting
Cabbage collars for placing round the young plants to protect them from cabbage root fly (available from garden centres)
A knife for harvesting