cabbage varieties

[leona]

I've never grown cabbage before because iv never been much of a fan but i made a veg dish the other day which is white cabbage and sprouts cooked with dill and caraway seeds and it was amazing. i ate a vast amount of it!
my mum loves cabbage so im looking into getting some seed asap. i want to grow 3 varieties, a white one, a heart forming one and a pointed one. id really like some recommendations. id rather have organic seed but it wouldnt be the end of the world not to.
thanks

[Protea]

I'm not a huge fan of cabage either,although i do love red cabbage raw in salads (which is what i grow it for).

The following varieties are reccomended:
Pointed varieties:

Advantage F1: Hybrid variety for hearted production in spring and autumn as well as greens production for spring, summer and autumn. Good dark colour with neat apperance. Available as organic seed.

Pyramid F1: Well known hybrid. Dark green, winter hardy for full hearts and greens production throughout the season. Good standing ability and very versatile.

Ballhead (hearted) varieties:

Derby Day: Early ballhead summer cabbage with good resistance to bolting compared with other similar varieties. Best OP variety available. Sow about 20th February in heat for early June cropping. Available as organic seed.

Roulette F1: new and highly attractive Dutch White x January King hybrid. The medium sized green heads are a nice round shape, dense with a short core and sweet taste. Roulette crops in the autumn and early winter. The plants will stand reasonably cold weather producing heads weighing approx 1 kg.

Sherwood F1: Extremely versatile hybrid with solid dark green heads and a short internal core. Average head weight of 1 kg. Sherwood is also noted for having a good sweet flavour. Crops August to October with good holding ability.

Pixie: Bred as the first early cut of hearted cabbage in spring, bagged greens all through summer and small hearted cabbage in November. Available as organic seed.

For suppliers i would suggest googling the variety name and the word cabbage seeds, there should be a selection.

For red varieties, my favorite is red cap or red meteor. yum yum!

[veg4681]

Sorry I have no recommendation as I'm fairly new myself with cabbages. I grew one last year but they were somewhat tiny (due to my own inexperience obviously) and the overwintered spring greens have been wasted as I didn't know what I was doing.

I would however advise you to think carefully about the harvesting season too, determined by the various variety of cabbage on the market. Do you love cabbage so much that you'd want to eat them throughout the year (if that's possible)? I didn't think and got myself a summer variety and now I feel it's more useful to have one that you can harvest from Dec onwards when I find there's nothing much to eat from the garden at this time of year. I think planning for winter vegetables is very important because in summer you have too many vegetable choices anyway.

My summer cabbage is Surprise F1 coz I thought in the picture it looked white for making coleslaw but you must remember that F1 seeds are expensive and this seed packet only had 40 seeds and I'm running out fast also due to germination failure ). The non-F1 cabbage tends to have more seeds, easily well over 100 and since they're Brassica, the seeds keep well too for upto 5 years and beyond.

BTW I think there is an 'all year round cabbage' variety that you have with 'all year round cauli' (but I'm very displeased with poor seed germination on my all year round cauli ) or I have been given duff freebie seeds.

[hawthorns]

im growing ruby ball f1 hybrid for the 1st time this year

[Snadger]

I am growing a 'sweetheart' type of cabbage this year (can't remember its name!) I'ts a pointed cabbage with grreen outer leaves and a white 'sweetheart'
I'm also growing one of my favourites 'Kilaton' clubroot resistant, round ball heads which stand a good long time and are nice in salad/coleslaw as well as a cooked vegetable!
My other favourites are Spring Cabbage Durham early and winter cabbage January King!

[leona]

thanks for your advice but im still stuck with too much choice!

[bluemoon]

I've tried hundreds of cabbages in my time (well Ok then perhaps a dozen) but I'm still looking for my holy grail. I once had the most delicious Ormskirk type savoy, really sweet and nutty, but I can't find it again as I'd thrown the seed packet away long before we ate one. Any ideas?

[gojiberry]

With the right planning you should have cabbages available all year. I find its very easy to oversow and then not have enough space to provide a variety. So far I have sown Greyhound, Hispi, Estoril, Kalibos, Red drumhead and Copenhagen Market. At the most I will only plant 6 of each type and they will see me through the summer. I havn't sown any winter cabbage yet as its a bit to early.

[veg4681]

I've tried hundreds of cabbages in my time (well Ok then perhaps a dozen) but I'm still looking for my holy grail. I once had the most delicious Ormskirk type savoy, really sweet and nutty, but I can't find it again as I'd thrown the seed packet away long before we ate one. Any ideas?

Sorry are there more than one type of Ormskirk cabbage ? Unwin seeds, DT Brown and Johnson seeds all sell Ormskirk unless you're referring to a specific variety under the Ormskirk category.

[Cutecumber]

I've grown quite a few cabbage varieties in containers - we eat cabbage regularly and all year round and it's really lovely when home-grown as it seems to be so much more tender.

My recommendations to start with would be:

Minicole - a ball-head, giving you crisp and crunchy white cabbage. Can be grown closely space to give you small heads. Commercially used for coleslaw and you can see why. Easy to grow, quick to mature - one the the best I have tried.

Protovoy - a small savoy, again you can plant them close and get small heads. Tasty and crunchy. Nice dark green colour.

Hispi - standard, quick growing green pointed cabbage. Easy and fairly quick.

Advantage - tougher than Hispi, but then it is more versatile. Sow anytime, pretty much.

Ruby ball - good red cabbage. They grow a bit more slowly than the green ones.

I haven't managed to grow any real winter cabbages to maturity yet - I've either been lazy and not planted the seddlings up, or they have succumbed to rootfly because of my neglect. One year, however, I will get there!

[sewer rat]

I'm growing the following cabbages this year
Hispi, Minicole, Derby Day, Red Drumhead, Protovoy, Tundra and January King. All tried and tested and proven success stories up here.