Did you know that brassicas are super pollinator-friendly veggies?
You can grow them from seed or get a bunch of seedlings from your local plant nursery. Start to sow red cabbage in March and plant out in mid April - May. They take up a bit of space in the veggie plot but are super low-maintenance and easy to grow in the garden. They flower in the second year of cultivation in an abundance of tiny yellow flowers that are also edible. Bees absolutely go crazy for those thousands of flowers that come with the red cabbage blossom!
Here's a little extract from our full 'Letters from the Garden' magazine article # Issue 7 that you can download for free below.
Red cabbage can be grown in the garden on evenly moist and nutrient-rich soil in a sunny spot. It is best to work a little compost into the bed before planting the seedlings. Red cabbage is propagated and cultivated by seed. However, for potentially impatient newcomers to vegetable growing we recommend to buy pre-grown organic seedlings from garden centers, because red cabbage seedlings tend to shoot sometimes (i.e. under the wrong conditions they grow tall very quickly when the germination process is complete, and their little stems might then snap, which can be very frustrating).
If you'd like to propagate red cabbage seedlings yourself in spring, we recommend that you sow the seeds ideally from mid February 1 cm deep into cultivation soil in potting trays and let the plants grow in a light space at around 15 ° C. Make sure that the soil does not dry out and is always evenly damp. If the young plants have several pairs of leaves, they can be planted outdoors from mid April to May with a distance of 50 cm on all sides.
You can also sow directly into the soil of your vegetable plot (again approx. 1 cm deep) from April onwards. It is best to protect the young plants in the plant bed with nets, especially at the beginning, because otherwise snails might nibble away small brassica seedlings.
In the cabbages’ period of growth, the brassica plants like it when the soil is kept evenly moist and they are adequately watered. Cabbages are heavily draining plants and need to be fertilized, e.g. with nettle manure or animal dung.
The harvest time for red cabbage is approx. 14 - 21 weeks after sowing, when a firm head has formed, but at the latest it should be harvested before the first frosts. Here you cut the head of the cabbage from the stalk with a sharp kitchen knife and process it or store it in a cool, dark place. It can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 2 months.
If you leave one or two of your red cabbage plants in the plot for another growing season, they will bloom wonderfully yellow in the second year. After insect pollination, the small red cabbage seeds can be harvested from the dry pods for further growing seasons, so that no new seeds have to be bought.
In order to counteract against pests in your cabbage patch in a natural way, you can plant it together with useful plot partners and follow a crop rotation. Do not grow the red cabbage on the same strip in the vegetable patch every year, but ideally take a three to four year break from cultivating the same plant in the same space.
