Seed Saver Challenge: Cabbage

Bi-annuals like onions and cabbage are a challenge for seed saving because they don’t make seeds until their second year. While it is more involved than simple annuals like tomatoes, beans, corn, etc., it can be done.

Where to Begin

Last fall, when I harvested my cabbages, I cut the heads off leaving four or more of the big bottom leaves. This left the stumps and roots with enough leaf to stay alive. As winter approached, I mulched over the stumps with about a foot of loose whole leaves. (To keep the chickens from un-piling my leaf mulch, I put a circle of fencing around the pile. This kept the wind from blowing it all away.

Signs of life

In April, after the last of the snow had melted away, I dug around in my leaf mulch. Of the four stumps I left, three of them had little leaf shoots. They were white, from the lack of sun, but there was life! I pulled the leaf litter back to let them get some sun. In just a week, there were little green leaves emerging from last year’s stumps.

The stumps continued to put out leaves, growing more vertical than they had last year. They did not exhibit that habit of the inner leaves curling back on the center like they do when forming heads. Instead, they were making flower stalks.

Flowers

By June, the light flower bud pods had spread into a loose panicle of little yellow buds. These opened up slowly, a few at a time, over the summer. The pods formed rather slowly after the flowers fell off. It seemed to take forever for the pods to grow and mature.

Pods and Seeds

By mid-August, the lowest of the pods had grown to several inches long and started to dry. If left to themselves, the pods split into two long halves, dropping their tiny seeds. I picked some of the big pods before they split. I let them dry indoors. They spilt pretty easily. Inside the long pods were eight or more tiny, round, black seeds. Smaller pods sometimes had only two seeds.

I didn’t have time to keep checking for ripening pods, so I cut off the whole panicle and put it upside down into a paper bag. As the pods dried and split, they dropped their seeds into the bag.

Limited Shelf Life

Cabbage seeds start losing fertility after just a couple of years. That said, I have planted some five-year-old seeds and had many germinate, they were very slow about it. I’d nearly given up on them. The fresh seeds sprouted in only a few days.

Custom Cabbage

The seeds I gathered this year will get planted in next year’s garden. Truth is, I got hundreds of seeds — far more than I’ll plant next year.  The fact that they grew well (making lovely heads last year), survived the winter, and produced flowers, means I should have a variety that is well-adapted to my garden’s conditions. 

Not Quite Dead

The fourth stump from last year turned out to be not-quite-dead. I left it in place, as the space was getting no other use. In mid-July, the fourth stump started putting out leaves too. It was too late in the season for that fourth stump to send up a flower stalk. Instead, it seems to be trying to form a head.  

The weather in August had been too hot for cabbages. They just sat there, growing very little. Now that the cooler weather has begun, it will be interesting to see if my last-year stump will actually produce a second head.

Give It a Try

If you grew cabbage in your garden this year, try leaving a couple of the stumps (with some of the bottom leaves), mulch them over, and see if you can get 2nd-year cabbages. If they survive the winter, they may send up flowers. You can produce your own cabbage seeds!

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