Growing Cabbage: A Complete Profile
By Growing Home Greens Team · July 18, 2026
Cabbage takes up a full square foot for months and won’t forgive a rushed transplant date. Start it too late into warm weather and it’s more likely to bolt or stall than to head up properly.
Starting it, and giving it a full square foot
Start seed indoors about 6 weeks before your last frost and set transplants out around 2 weeks before that date; cabbage handles a light frost well. Each plant needs its own square foot to form a proper head. This isn’t a crop that fills in gaps. Early-season varieties can finish in as little as 60 days, which opens up a second fall planting in many climates, while late-season types run 100 days or more and are typically grown for storage rather than a quick harvest.
A split head is a watering problem
A head that splits is usually a watering-consistency issue. Heavy rain or a big watering after a dry stretch causes the head to swell faster than the outer leaves can handle, and it cracks open. Harvesting promptly once heads feel firm, rather than waiting for them to get larger, avoids most splitting. Small, loose heads that never tighten up often trace back to an overly warm start; cabbage transplanted into hot weather is prone to bolting instead of heading.
A bed hog worth planning deliberately
Onion’s scent is reputed to confuse the cabbage moths that target cabbage and other brassicas. See the full companion guide for cabbage. Keep it away from tomatoes, since brassicas and tomatoes compete heavily and can stunt each other in a shared bed. At one plant per square foot for months at a time, cabbage is a bed hog worth planning deliberately in the Garden Designer rather than squeezing in as an afterthought.
Companion planting guide for Cabbage · Find your planting dates
Typically viable in USDA zones 2-10. Not sure your zone? Look it up by ZIP code.
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. Cabbage needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
See exact start-indoors, direct-sow, and harvest dates for your zone →
How many Cabbage plants fit per square foot?
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing). Mature height: 1-1.5 ft.
Soil & water: pH 6.2-6.5. well-drained. Amend with lime if soil pH falls below 6.2.
Varieties worth considering
- Stonehead or Caraflex (early-season): Iowa State University Extension lists both as early-season varieties (roughly 60-65 days) with good holding ability, suited to gardeners who want a spring crop finished before summer heat or a second planting for fall harvest. (source)
- Early Thunder: Also on Iowa State's list, early-season with blue-green heads and excellent holding ability, a third early option alongside Stonehead and Caraflex if you want to compare more than two. (source)
- Ruby Perfection: Iowa State's late-season pick, medium-size reddish-purple heads. The one to grow for storage rather than a quick spring harvest, and the only red option among Iowa State's named varieties. (source)
- 'Golden Acre' (best for: small heads, quick turnaround): A 1920s open-pollinated heirloom with solid 5-7 inch heads at just 60 days, smaller and even earlier than Stonehead or Caraflex above. Worth growing if you want a compact head sized for a single meal rather than one built for storage. (source)
Cited from the source shown next to each variety. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement.
Where to buy cabbage seeds
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See it growing
Search YouTube for "growing cabbage" videos → (a live search, not a hand-picked video; results vary and aren't vetted by us)
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Growing Cabbage: A full-season brassica that rewards picking the right maturity window for your climate more than any single technique.
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