Mention the words “winter vegetable garden” and one plant immediately springs to mind – the humble, and much maligned cabbage. I picture ornamental rows of big ruby red drumhead varieties, all standing bravely against the worst weather that a Darling Downs winter can bring. There’s one problem with this image though. It’s the sight of slimy, boiled cabbage being unceremoniously dumped onto a dinner plate beside slices of corned beef. To me, it looked and tasted like boiled seaweed. Don’t even mention the “wind”.
Do you share my dilemma? On the one hand, I love the look of a winter garden full of cabbages. On the other hand, I absolutely loathe eating the things. Since my gardening philosophy is to concentrate on growing what the family likes to eat, I’m very choosy about the cabbage varieties I grow, and of the few that make the cut, most of the plant will end up in the gizzard of a chook. Fortunately, they don’t share the same sense of repulsion.
I’m probably being a bit unfair to what is actually a valuable, nutrient-rich vegetable. Half the problem was that my Mum, who is otherwise a first-class cook, probably didn’t know how to cook it. Maybe it’s a hereditary thing. Mum is of Scottish descent and I guess that meant that vegies were either roasted or boiled. If she was Irish, I might have scored colcannon. If she was German, sauerkraut would have been the go. Even bubble and squeak would have gone down alright. But boiled it was.
There I go again, deriding an innocent vegetable. Poor thing. Let’s see if I can put the image of boiled seaweed out of my head and highlight some of the cabbage’s good points. For one, it is about the hardiest winter vegetable there is. Cabbages, and their closely related cousins the kales and choys, contain natural anti-freeze which allows them to easily cope with frosts down to minus 10 or lower.
I wasn’t kidding when I said that cabbages are packed with nutrients. They are particularly high in Vitamin C, making them useful for warding off winter ills, and also have high levels of calcium, fibre and Omega-3 fatty acids. There’s evidence to suggest that cabbages can help prevent cancer due to their high levels of antioxidants.
Neither was I kidding about ornamental value. The crinkly leaves of savoy cabbages are especially beautiful, and red drumhead varieties look good when backlit by a low winter sun. Some of rocket-shaped sugarloaf cabbages look pretty, but my favourite of the lot is Tuscan kale or cavolo nero. The Italian name translates as “black cabbage” and indeed, the foliage combines an unusually dark, slate green colour with lance-shaped, savoy leaves.
The other good thing about cavolo nero, is that it’s actually edible. Delicious in fact. I like it pan-fried in olive oil with chopped bacon and garlic, then mixed through mashed potato. Maggie Beer does a lovely looking bruschetta with cavolo nero, and describes it as “a rustic dish for which I would travel miles.” Perhaps I do like eating cabbages after all.
There are three rules to bear in mind when growing cabbages, and any related members of the Brassicaceae family such as broccoli, cauliflower and rocket. The first is that they love rich, well drained soil. Manure heavily, add well rotted compost, and plant cabbages after a crop of nitrogen fixing legumes (beans or peas). The second is that cabbages appreciate a sweet soil, so incorporate about a handful of dolomite lime per square metre to raise the pH if required.
Finally, time your crop to mature when the weather is cool. Considering that spring on the Downs can be warm and dry, the best time to plant cabbages is in autumn, with harvest occurring progressively through winter. It’s not too late to get some plants in now. Brassicas grow easily from seed, and this is a good way to experiment with some of the old fashioned varieties. Depending on the variety, you might need to plant as far as half a metre apart.
Pests are few. Possums will eat the tender young leaves, but the main enemy of most brassica growers are those frustratingly persistent cabbage white butterflies. Their numbers are much reduced during winter, but in warmer areas, you have two choices to keep them at bay: netting the plants, or spraying with non-toxic “Bt” (Bacillus thuringiensis, sold as Dipel).
There you go – cabbages are a virtuous plant after all. Does this mean that I’ll be filling my patch with them? Probably not. I’ll always find room for cavolo nero and stuff like bok choy, but I still can’t come at the big drumheads. By all means give them a go, but for me, the sight of slimy boiled cabbage has left a permanent scar.
First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 12th June 2010. Photo by Justin Russell – Tuscan Kale or Cavolo Nero.
