How To Grow Summer Cabbage

Learning how to grow summer cabbage is not as difficult as you might think, provided you follow a few simple rules.
I sow summer cabbage in the greenhouse in February. Take a 4" or 5" pot, ¾ fill with seed compost, water and then sow the little seeds as thinly as possible. They are like little balls and roll around a bit, but you want to get about 20 or so in the pot.
Cover with ½" of soil and leave. They don't generally need any heat. When the plants are a couple of inches high, transplant into two and a quarter inch square pots, 15 of which will fill a standard seed tray for ease of handling, using a good potting compost.
Grow on and harden off before planting out in April. Plant 15" apart in a well manured soil, but don't use too much nitrogenous fertiliser and make sure you plant very firmly, otherwise the plants will not heart up properly.
You will need to put cabbage collars around the stems in order to avoid the unwanted attentions of the cabbage root fly.
Another method is to put a different type of physical barrier all around the row of plants. This must be at least 9" high and deters the fly, as she swoops in very low to lay her eggs.
You could use glass, plastic, timber or anything, but to my mind cabbage collars are far simpler and do the job.
An excellent variety to grow this way, especially for a small family, is the variety Minicole. It has the great advantage that it is a really solid cabbage and also will stand for WEEKS without bolting.
Honestly, I've had this stand for as much as five months and it is now the only summer cabbage I grow.
However, you can also sow Greyhound up until mid-July and this will provide some good cabbages in October.
Bear in mind that you also need to protect young plants against attack by pigeons if they are a problem in your area. Normally they only attack young plants, but over the last two years we've had them stripping fully grown plants bare and have had to resort to building net cages 2' high and as wide in order to keep the perishers away!
Now you know how to grow superb summer cabbage, you'll want to do it every season.

About the Author
Jack West is a garden writer who has been growing for over forty years. His main interests are growing food and flowers for the house. Very recently he has discovered an amazing new way of making garden compost which is far, far better for plants than traditional methods! This is truly groundbreaking (sorry) stuff! Get the red-hot info here:-
http://kmeister.turnwill2.hop.clickbank.net/

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