How to grow them
Sow in modules or a seed bed in spring and plant out in early summer, firming well. It follows early potatoes or broad beans nicely. Net against pigeons, which will eat it to the stalks in a hard winter.
Cabbage family
Kale
The toughest green on the plot. It stands through snow and feeds you in the hungry gap.
- Buy as
- Seed
- Space
- 45cm between plants, 60cm between rows
- Position
- Sun or light shade
- Rotation
- Cabbage family
- Difficulty
- Easy
The year
Sow indoors
Sow outdoors
Plant out
Harvest
When to pick
Take a few leaves from each plant, working up from the bottom, and leave the crown to keep growing. Frost makes it sweeter.
What goes wrong
Problems, and what to do
Pigeons
Net all winter.
Whitefly
Clouds of tiny white insects under the leaves. Unsightly but mostly harmless: wash the leaves.
Caterpillars
Net in summer, as for cabbages.
Good neighbours: Nasturtiums, Beetroot.
Same family
More from cabbage family
CabbagesWith the right varieties you can cut a cabbage in every month of the year.
Broccoli (calabrese)The green broccoli of the supermarket, ready in about twelve weeks.
Purple sprouting broccoliIt takes nearly a year, and repays you with fresh greens when the plot has little else.
Brussels sproutsA long wait and a lot of space, for sprouts that taste nothing like the boiled ones of memory.
CauliflowersThe hardest of the family to grow well, and the most satisfying when you do.
SwedesA winter root that looks after itself. It is a brassica, so it goes in the cabbage bed.
TurnipsFast, and far better small. Pulled at golf-ball size they are sweet enough to eat raw.
RadishesSeed to plate in four weeks. The crop to sow with children, or between slower rows.