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Growing Cabbage | |
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GardenGuides Newsletter
June 6, 2006
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Get Rid of Pests
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* Start with Healthy Soil
Keep a look out for pests; and to prevent them from coming,
keep your soil healthy. Experts say healthy soil can prevent
about 80 percent of insect damage. Healthy soil breeds
healthy plants that are better able to resist pests.
* Identify Friends and Foes
Observe your garden closely to see what insects are present,
and learn to tell the good from the bad. An illustrated
guide can help you identify insects so you'll know what
you're up against.
* Rotate Plantings
Insect pests tend to feed on a plant and then lay their
eggs in the soil below. When you plant the same thing in
the same spot every year, the emerging larvae have a
convenient food supply. However, if you move plants around
from year to year, you make it harder for the larvae to
find food.
* Spray Safety
Spray only as a last resort. Chemicals should be a last
pest-control resort. Many pesticides are harmful to people,
and though they do kill pests, they also kill soil nutrients
and beneficial insects. If you must spray something on your
plants, start with plain water -- it will kill some insects
and force off many others. For a little more power, add an
insecticidal soap to the water spray.
* Use the Buddy System
Some pairs of plants just seem to grow well together, often
because one helps repel pests from the other. Employed by
gardeners for centuries, this concept is called companion
planting. Garden books can help you find good companions for
your favorite plants.
* Enlist Allies
Nature provides an army of allies in the form of predators
that feed on insects. Your friends include birds, bees,
wasps, and spiders, as well as beneficial insects such as
ladybugs, green lacewings, predator mites, mealybug destroy-
ers, ground beetles, and the wickedly named assassin bug. A
birdbath and feeder will attract feathered predators to your
garden, while nectar-producing flowers will draw beneficial
insects.
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Growing Cabbage
By Linden Staciokas
Cabbage is one of those vegetables that is sufficiently
adequate when purchased from the grocery store, so only
people who grow their own have tasted the special sweetness
of a cabbage picked at its tender prime and eaten right away.
This year, however, there is even more incentive to try your
gardening hand with Brassica oleracea, because the 1997
theme of the Tanana Valley State Fair is "Attack of the
Killer Cabbages."
Not that this vegetable needs the assistance of a fair
competition to increase its popularity: cabbage has been a
hit for centuries. Egyptians once worshipped it, and the
Romans used it for medicinal purposes. Even today, Russian
cuisine makes liberal use of cabbage, both in its raw form
and when preserved as sauerkraut. With more than 2,000
years of such far-flung notoriety, no one has been able to
pinpoint exactly where cabbage originated, but lucky for us,
it is one vegetable that thrives in cool surroundings.
It is too late to start your cabbage from seed, as that was
a March task. However, local greenhouses offer an abundance
of varieties in pale green, deep green, bright red and
purple. (There are also many loose-leaf types, such as the
Chinese cabbages, as well as plenty of ornamentals, but
today I am confining my discussion to edible head cabbage.)
If you plan to enter the contest at the fair, O-S Cross is a
breed that can be pushed to reach the super-size weight
division. Once you have finished the hardening-off stage,
set your seedlings deeper than they were in the six pack or
individual container, by placing them in almost to the first
leaves, you add stability and protect the stems from frost.
And don't just pop them out and then plop them into the soil:
gently massage the roots and try to spread them out a bit
in the hole.
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Unless you have raised beds that allow for more intensive
planting, or purposely want tiny heads that will be gone
after serving two people one meal, space the seedlings at
least 6 inches apart, in rows a foot away from each other.
Be sure to tamp the soil down well, so that you eliminate
any air pockets that could dry the roots. Like virtually
every other vegetable, cabbage would prefer to live in soil
that is rich and light. However, I have seen it tolerate
soils of clay, as well as those that bear more than a pass-
ing resemblance to sand.
The more critical element seems to be what and how often the
plants are fed--all brassicas grow with a speed that
requires plenty of fuel. In my garden, this starts from the
moment the seedling is being hardened-off. As exposure to
the elements lengthens, thus increasing watering needs, I
use a water soluble fertilizer that has been prepared with
warm water. On the day of planting, each hole gets a handful
of compost; in the years when I am short of that or aged
horse droppings, I use purchased steer manure.
After the seedling is settled, I pour on more warm fertil-
izer. Three weeks into the season, I fertilize again, and
then once more three weeks later. In years when I have an
abundance of aged manure or compost with which to side-dress
throughout the season, I may skip the second fertilizing.
But never the first.
There are gardeners who grow their cabbages directly on top
of their compost heaps, but I save that treat for my
tomatoes. However, if you are vying for top honors in the
Killer Cabbage competition, by all means top off your pile
with some soil, set in those transplants and grow away.
Continued...
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Michele Hebert, of Cooperative Extension, suggested in a
column last week that gardeners might want to experiment
with another system: dig 3-foot holes, fill them with fresh
manure until only 6 inches of the hole is left open, and
top off the last half-foot with your regular soil. Set in
the cabbages, and use a fertilizer during your weekly
waterings.
The final prerequisite to success, whether entering the
fair's contest or not, is to keep the moisture levels even--
a sudden burst of watering after you have let the plant
starve for water will often lead to split heads. And through-
out June I always use warm water on all my vegetables,
ladled out from 33-gallon plastic garbage cans that have
been standing in the sun. I am not sure brassicas need such
coddling, but I figure even crops that prefer cool soils
find our dirt less than inviting.
If your crop starts coming in too rapidly for your immediate
use, and you fear that the remainder will split and spoil
before you are able to use or process it, there are a few
tricks that will slow everything down. One is to take a
sharp hoe or knife and shove it down sharply on two sides of
the plant, deeply enough to sever some of the roots. Or,
grasp the head firmly and make a small sharp twist, just
enough to break some of the roots. It doesn't take much, as
the roots are close to the surface (which means you should
take extra care you don't inadvertently damage the roots
when you are hoeing).
A light fall frost will not kill your cabbages, but harvest
them before a really beastly one occurs. Cut the heads off
with a sharp knife and store in a cool basement, encased in
waxed paper. My grandmother used to pull up the entire plant,
roots and all, and hang it upside down in the basement. This
works well, although between the hanging tomatoes and
bunched herbs, my rafters are about full by mid-September.
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