Thursday, December 30, 2010

Perennial Cabbage?




Can cabbage possibly be perennial? This is a picture of a cabbage plant I planted in the fall of 2009. It produced a head of cabbage, which I cut of and ate. The plant lived and put out a few more leaves. Then, it didn't die during last summer's heat. Hmmm. I left it alone and it began to thrive with this fall's cooler weather. Now, it is producing not one, but three heads of cabbage. Is this the hydra of the plant world? If so, cool. Now I am going to let all of my decapitated cabbage plants stay in the ground just to see if they will make additional heads for me.
In case you didn't know, broccoli will produce little baby broccoli heads after the first head is harvested, however, as soon as it get warm, mine always go to seed.

6 comments:

  1. I have never grown cabbage, but what's happened with yours is amazing to me. Thinking of the economy of your return on your investment in one plant and the space it occupies, if there is enough space to let some stay, I would try that too. Makes for easier gardening it seems to me, and I'm all for that.

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  2. Wow, I can't believe your cabbage came back, with 3 heads, now that's crazy.

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  3. Garden style are always very important to choose as they should be unique and should have a some good specifications as they hold your impression. Your cabbage looks beautiful.

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  4. My cabbage did the same thing! Our summer ended abruptly in 2010, so I did not pull the plant. The next spring, there it was again, and produced 3 good heads! So, I'm likely to see if it sticks around. It is VERY healthy.

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  5. Trying to figure out what to do with mine! Didn't harvest it last fall. Now it sprout several smaller plants. No cabbage yet but suspect it might be coming. It's growning huge yellow flowers. Should I be trimming this or just let it go?

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  6. So have I got this right, as long as you stop the cabbage from actually flowering it will keep producing just leaves (which is essentially what the head is, a ball of leaves) ? You have inspired us to try this on our allotment as an experiment where we buy plugs in and do large beds of Cabbages, we will leave a row in place and see what happens by leaving the rootball and neck and all (sounds horrific) to do its thing.....thanks for sharing your find, could offer massive returns for little space, kind regards. Wesley & Christine.

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