QUESTION: Does cabbage come back every year? Will cabbage regrow if I leave part of the plant in the ground? -Tina P.
ANSWER: Cabbage plants do not come back year after year, as it is considered an annual plant, however, cabbage may actually be a biennial if treated properly. When harvesting, leave just enough of the bottom leaves behind to keep the plant alive to support further growth. If you cut below the lowest leaves, the remaining bits will quickly shrivel and die, so be sure to leave behind enough green to be a viable surface for sprouting a second round of growth.
Care for the remaining greens as if they were a whole new plant. Nurture it, water it, and even work in some nutrient-rich manure into the first inch of soil, taking care not to injure the roots in the process.
In just under a week, you should start to see some small sprouts beginning to shoot up around the outer edge of the original head’s stub. Keep on treating it as if it was a new plant. Before long, the little sub-heads will expand to about the size of a baseball. Typically, there will not be just one new head, but several, usually three or four, but sometimes as many as six smaller heads that grow up around the rim of the original plant’s stub.
In total, the second round of growth will provide as much food as the original harvest, but with a delicate difference. The cores of your new mini cabbages will be pale green, nearly white, leafy and very tender. The outer leaves will be a darker green, but even those will be quite tender and tasty. In fact, these mini cabbages are surprisingly preferred by many chefs to the larger main heads because of their extra tender texture and mild flavor.
no, cabbage does not come back next year, If you cut the head just below it several small heads will grow this year though, To save sead you have to be in an area that the head can make it through the winter, then cut an X on the head then it will bolt and form seed pods .
I am in zone 4b and would love to be able to grow cabbage, then harvest the seeds. I read online they can be grown from zone 1 on. So if they are that hardy, surely they would be able to survive a 4b winter to seed the following winter? Any advice???
I’m in zone 4 and left my cabbage plants entacted over the winter. They not only continued to grow but are also getting flower buds starting to come on!
I even harvested a small head of cabbage already!
I have two cabbage plants in New Jersey which are entering their 4th year. They actually produce heads, but being I do not harvest them they turn into a vine type plant. At 4 years old I would guess the stem to be about 24”.
I bought ornamental cabbages last year. Never even got chance to take them out of their 6″ plastic pots (cuz we got early heavy snow in NYS). Then a deer or other critter ate one! So l left other one at end of driveway (where l put these to decorate for fall, with other plants)
Just checked and the little cabbage is not only still alive (with a softball sized red cabbage head on top) but is producing “mini cabbages” all up and down the stem! There must be 12-15 or more!
Shall l cut the main head off to get small ones to grow? I saw post above that said to “cut an x” into top head to get it to go to seed.
Is such a plant edible?
Thanks~
Reading that cabbages are a perennial, I decided to conduct an experiment on cabbage plants. Little did I know it was going to last more than a year. I have a couple cabbage plant going into their 4th season in New Jersey. Their stems are about 24” long, they produce fruit each year, they drop seed and start new plants which I transfer to the vegetable garden. I would love to share the pictures of these plants. The fruit is smaller which is because it is supporting so much plant.