Cabbage family
With the right varieties you can cut a cabbage in every month of the year.
Spring cabbage is the exception: sow it in July and August, plant in September and October, and cut it from April.
Sow in a seed bed or modules, and move the young plants to their final place when they have five or six leaves. Plant them deep, up to the first leaves, and firm the soil hard with your heel: loose soil gives loose heads. Net them from the day they go in.
Cut when the heart is firm. Winter varieties will stand in the ground for weeks.
What goes wrong
Fine netting from planting to harvest is the only sure answer. Check the undersides of leaves for yellow eggs.
The same net, held off the leaves on hoops.
Swollen roots and wilting plants on acid soil. Lime the bed the winter before, and rotate strictly.
Fit a collar of card round each stem at planting.
Good neighbours: Nasturtiums, Onions, Mint in a pot.
Same family