Cabbage
Dates below are counted from the average last spring frost or the average first fall frost. Enter a ZIP in the calendar for NOAA 1991–2020 station averages, or pick a zone and use the zone table.
When to plant
Soil and site
A heavy feeder — generous compost, steady moisture. Erratic watering after heads form makes them split.
Seedlings
Plant starts deep like broccoli. Closer spacing gives smaller, denser heads — 12 in is fine for fresh eating.
In the garden
The most cold-tolerant of the big brassicas; mature heads shrug off the low 20s.
Picking
Squeeze — a ready head is hard as a ball. Cut and leave the outer leaves; small secondary heads often follow.
Harvest
First harvest is about 70–90 days after transplanting. The picking window often runs about 3 weeks.
A ready head feels hard when you squeeze it. Cut it and leave the outer leaves; small side heads often follow.
Preserving
Plain cabbage is not a USDA canned vegetable. Ferment it as sauerkraut or freeze it.
Sauerkraut is the tested NCHFP ferment for cabbage. Keep the cabbage under brine, and follow that page if you can the finished kraut.
National Center for Home Food Preservation: Sauerkraut →Freeze shredded cabbage with the NCHFP method. Frozen cabbage is for cooking.
National Center for Home Food Preservation: Freezing cabbage →Canning, pickling, and fermenting notes here are summaries of tested USDA and National Center for Home Food Preservation methods. Times, pressures, and amounts live only on those pages. This site does not publish home-invented processing times.
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Dates by zone
These pages turn the same frost offsets into calendar dates for each zone the calendar covers.