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~ Seed for CABBAGES ~

plant pictureThere are 3 types of cabbage, named for when they are ready to eat. You plant them at different times:

The spring and summer cabbages are smaller & more tender, but the winter ones have longer to grow and so are much bigger.

Rather than offer a huge array of similar types for you to try to choose between, we have instead selected a couple of good varieties from each group.

These are listed in order of harvest: from Spring Cabbages at the top through to Winter Cabbages at the bottom of the page.




Cabbage - ready to eat year round

plant picturePaul & Becky's Asturian Tree Cabbage RARE

This unusual Spanish heirloom has absolutely enormous leaves - and it looks like a Kale rather than a cabbage; it makes no head, just a tall stalk with  a loose head on top. You simply take the huge leaves a few at a time to eat all year round.

You can even keep it going for two years or more! Just cut it back when it tries to flower - it makes new growth, ideal for fresh cabbage in spring during the ‘hungry gap’.

You can use it as cooked greens just as normal. But Tree Cabbage like this is also a key ingredient in the classic Spanish dish 'Caldo Gallego' - which is a delicious leaf, bean, and meat stew.

Grows like cabbage, harvested like a kale . Very, very rare. Can be a short-lived perennial vegetable if the flowers are removed as they form.

small packet, organic , approx 150 seed £

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= normal sowing & harvest time = also possible depending on conditions




SPRING Cabbages - ready to eat in Spring

plant picture'Durham Early' Spring Cabbage

A very reliable old variety of spring cabbage with dark green solid conical hearts, usually ready towards the end of April.

300 seed £

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= normal sowing & harvest time = also possible depending on conditions


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'Baccalan de Rennes' Spring Cabbage

This great traditional spring cabbage from Rennes in France returns to the catalogue after a 10-year absence! This makes firm heads that are halfway between round and pointy – like a rugby ball.

Normally sow in late summer/early autumn for harvest the following spring. Ideal for harvesting small heads as “spring greens” or leaving to heart up fully.

This variety is very popular, and we have had good reports back from different parts of the UK.

approx 300 seed £

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plant pictureWheelers' Imperial Spring Cabbage

A well-known and trusted compact spring cabbage with leafy hearts of good flavour.

Dual-use: it can also be sown in spring to get loose-heads of greens in autumn. (thats the paler green in calendar below)

300 seed £

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= normal sowing & harvest time = also possible depending on conditions




SUMMER Cabbages - ready to eat in SUMMER

plant pictureGolden Acre Summer Cabbage

This is a really good summer cabbage that makes tight round heads that are a very attractive golden-green colour, and an excellent flavour. (The colour hasn't shown so well in the photo, but a row of them in the garden really does stand out glowingly.)

Sow relatively early in spring, and you can harvest at that useful period before the main summer crops get going.

approx 250 seed £

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Small screen: Turn your device sideways to view sowing calendar.



= normal sowing & harvest time = also possible depending on conditions



plant pictureGreyhound Summer/Autumn Cabbage

A traditional compact cabbage ideal for smaller plots, with not too many outer leaves and a nice dense conical head. Normally sown in spring for an early summer crop, this received the RHS Award of Garden Merit in 2002.

A much-loved variety that is suited to sowing and harvesting over a long period.

300 sd £

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Small screen: Turn your device sideways to view sowing calendar.



= normal sowing & harvest time = also possible depending on conditions



plant picture"Belarusskaya 455" Summer/Autumn Cabbage
This European cabbage is a great long-storing, hardy heirloom from Belarussia, near the border with Poland. It is one of best two we found in our 2017 trials of old ex-USSR varieties.

Productive! Makes flattened heads in about 100-130 days that are nice and tight, very pale green (almost white) , weighing 2 to 3kg.

Bred sometime before 1945 by the seed company Vniissok, from an even older Belarussian heirloom.Consider keeping your own seed, we don't produce much of it.

180 seed organic (smaller packet as very, very rare) £

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plant picture'Great Oxheart' Late Summer/ Early Autumn Cabbage
A traditional cabbage making medium sized pointy heads (about 3lb / 1.5kg) Normally sown in spring for a summer-autumn crop, it’s quite quick growing, ready in about 100 days.

Pointy, a decent size , and moderately quick.

300 seed £

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AUTUMN Cabbages - ready to eat in AUTUMN

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'Rouge Tete Noir' Late Summer/ Early Autumn Red Cabbage

A real unsung hero. We've offered it for years and never really praised it sufficiently, but looking at them on the field this autumn we realised again just what an excellent cabbage it is. With no care or attention it grew through the wet and drought and made great firm heads that the caterpillars and slugs left alone. It's fab!

A super-reliable red round-headed variety for late summer & early autumn harvest, great shredded in salads or coleslaw as the deep red surface contrasts with the white flesh inside.

We have found that red cabbages seem to be somewhat less affected by caterpillars, perhaps because they show up more to the birds on the red background?

Firm red heads, short stem. Sow in spring for use mid-summer onwards.

300 seed £

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Winter Cabbages - ready to eat in WINTER

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Des Vertus’ Savoy Winter Cabbage

Also known as the Virtuous Cabbage, because it has many good qualities! This valued hardy heirloom from France makes large flattened heads that mature late in the season for harvest overwinter.

We found an engraving of it in our copy of Vilmorin's famous book 'The Vegetable Garden' printed in 1885, and it looks very much the same after all these years.

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Relatively cold-resistant and can be cut overwinter.

250 seed £

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plant picture‘Ironhead’ Savoy Early Winter Cabbage

A vigorous heirloom with large rounded heads of crinkled leaves, not as bobbly as teh others. One of the quicker winter cabbages, and is for taking from November on into the start of winter.

It makes a good round head, which is nice and tight to protect against mud and insects.

300 seed £

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plant picture‘Piacenza’ Savoy Winter Cabbage

A cold-resistant savoy from the town of Piacenza (in the Po Valley of Italy), with bright green leaves which are very finely savoyed.

Tight round head is quite crisp. Hardy.

300 seed £

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‘Saint Michael of Verona’ Purple Winter Cabbage

A large winter cabbage, with dark green leaves and deep purple highlights. Isn't it pretty? The heads can get to 5 lbs / 2.5 kg, and the leaves are fairly smooth so it doesn't really count as a savoy (crinkle-leaf) type, but they are slightly indented, this possibly helps with resistance to frost.

Large and attractive winter cabbage, ready in about 170 days.

300 seed £

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Saving Cabbage Seed is EASY:

plant pictureDo have a go at saving seed from the brassica family - cabbages, kales, oriental vegetables, broccoli and turnips. Many of you already save obvious vegetables like tomato and lettuce seed, but more people are saving brassica seed now - and we'd like to encourage you to try it too.

Its incredibly easy, and you'll have loads to give away. There's really no need to buy Cabbage seed from us every year at all. Just set aside a patch of good plants, and let them flower. (You will need to slash the head of ball-types with a knife to let the seed stalk out.) Make sure that you've got a reasonable number, that they are healthy, and that no other sorts are flowering nearby that might cross with them. You'll get lots of seeds in August.

How to actually get the seeds out:

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Here's Kate processing some Pak Choi.

You do need to make sure they aren't crossed with anything, as many of the brassicas (cabbages, cauliflowers etc) will cross with each other very readily. See the seedsaving pages at the bottom left hand side of this website for more infomation.

To get the seeds out, flower stalks from a good-sized population are hung up to dry,then broken open over a bowl (or old baby bath in this case!).

The bits of pod are screened out with a sieve or a soil riddle - but you can instead winnow them off in a breeze pretty easily if you prefer.

Step-by-step, highly detailed instructions are here on our new brassica-seedsaving page.
And of course, seed-saving is only possible because these are all real, non-hybrid varieties.