Red cabbage

[emmajane]

I love, and I mean adore, red cabbage, but can never get it to grow. I raise my young plants at the time the packets suggest, harden them off and plant them on my allotment with a sprinkling of lime, and then feed throughout the season with chicken manure pellets. I get a reasonable harvest of brussel sprouts, and brocolli, but red, and white cabbages, just sit in the ground and look ugly! I have never had one of the impressive hard heads that other plot holders grow, and I do pretty much the same as them! Yes there is club root on our site, but only in one corner and I have never been affected. So, any tips for me?? Maybe you have a failsafe variety you can recommend??

[ottawagardener]

Have you tried mammoth red rock? It is a sure cropper for me though I live in a very different climate then yours. It also tastes fantastic.

[emmajane]

I haven't heard of them ottawagardener, but have googled them now. Fine looking red cabbages. I will have to see if I can find a UK retailer.

[ottawagardener]

pm me and I'll send you a small sample of commercial seed - from Cottage Gardener.

[canadamike]

I am betting on crowded transplant roots. Cabbages will do nothing if their roots get crowded when they are young, you could grow them for decades to get a head and it would be a lost cause.


Try seeding the m later next year or start them from seed in the garden.

[michaeljohnson]

Usually with cabbages in the Uk, of any kind red green or other colour, it is usually the best to give them an early feed of high nitrogen feed, sulphate of ammonia, Nitrate of Soda is quicker but you have to sprinkle it several inches away from the roots as it can burn them if too close.
a second feed can be given at the halfway stage together with a little superphosphate to give the roots a kick start, no high nitrogen feed after that point as it will blow the heads wide open and split them-large ball headed cabbages will blow wide open if they get too greedy on the nitro.
Red cabbages also require more light to develop as also do the whites, so it might be better to wait until a little later in the season before sowing them.
This is a very common problem with those ornamental cabbages, which are very pretty but quite hard to grow.

[emmajane]

Aha. Thanks for that michaeljohnson. I will try the feeding, and start them off a little later in spring.

Canadamike, whenever I try to grow brassicas directly in the allotment, the slugs and snails munch them before they have a chance to really germinate! Drives me potty and I hate using chemicals to kill the darn things. I have been saving egg shells and baking them in the oven until brittle and sharp all winter - a hard task as we can't use eggs as a rule as our daughter is severly allergic to them - and I plan to sprinkle these sharp shards around my brassicas to see if that does the trick.

[canadamike]

You could also go to your hair salon and get a bag of hair,,,slugs hate them....

[emmajane]

I have heard that, kinda makes me cringe thinking of other peoples hair around my veggies....

[ottawagardener]

Guess the slugs feel the same way though I'm not about to put any hair on them.

So here is my technique for growing Mammoth Red Rock. I'm not saying it's wise or would work for you but it really does work for me and I used to be a cabbage flunk out:

Start about 6-8 weeks before last frost (yes really)

Plant out about 2-4 weeks before last frost (again, yes really), spaced about 12-18 inches in all directions. Harden off for a couple days. Push in a bottomless plastic cup around the seedlings to keep out pests. In my case, mostly cutworms though we do have slugs but I'm sure they could vault over. Put bottomless pop bottles on top to keep out extra nasty weather. I have had mine snowed on.

Remove pop bottle tops when the weather is warm enough that they might be getting a bit roasty in them but leave the plastic cup - 2 inches below soil, 3 inches above around them.

I don't feed but I regularly add organic matter to my soil. Sometimes I mulch around the bed with composted well-aged manure.

Let grow.

Let grow.

Let grow.

It is a late season cabbage.

Harvest when you have good sized heads. Not too bothered by pests. Slugs normally just cause some chew marks on the outer leaves. Cut the head off but leave the plant in the ground for the mini-heads it will then produce.

I leave mine in the ground until just before really, really cold weather - ie. you could probably leave them in the ground all winter, provided you stuck a low tunnel over them to protect against wind, snow and sleet. If they freeze, bring them inside and let them defrost. They are usually good after that if the heads are well formed. Just remove some of the damaged outer leaves.

Hope this or some variation works for you. I'm waiting for the pics (I have one under cabbage varieties)

[wolfcub]

Emmajane Why not take a bucket to your local bakery or resteraunt and ask them to save egg shells for you just a thought Marj

[emmajane]

Thanks for posting your growing method Ottawagardener. I will give it my best shot this year.

Marj, I thought I would mention it to my neighbour as she does a lot of baking for the Womens Institute and gets through lots and lots of eggs. I will definately put the word out.

[raymondo]

I've heard that a strip of copper around the plants will keep slugs and snails out as they won't crawl over copper. I have no idea if it works or not. I bought some copper strips to test it out.

I have terrible slug problems so I have great difficulty with peas and later beans. I oversow hoping that a few will get through. Enough always seem to. I put covers over seeds if I only have a few though. Brassicas on the other hand, except for hot mustards which the slugs don't like, I sow in flats and transplant.

Perhaps we should take a leaf out of Carol Deppe's book and keep sowing direct and saving seed of those that survive the slug onslaught in the hope of creating plants that can outgrow the damage quickly, in other words, select for very vigorous early growth.

[grunt]

Raymondo: Copper does work, and it doesn't have to be a very wide strip. I have used an unravelled brillo pad (copper mesh scrub pad for the kitchen). The copper starts an electrolysis sort of action when they try to cross it, so they get a mild shock.
Dan

[canadamike]

That is true Ray. I used the trick with my worm bin years ago, to deter the ocasional climbers trying to get out of the bin.

Grunt: I can see you are really a retired guy. It is the first time I see someone with enough time on his hands to unrael a brillo pad ;D ;D ;D

Oh well!! I guess you have Grungy to do the real work