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.
What to expect
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.
Common problems
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.
Where this fits in your garden
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 →
Spacing: 1 per square foot (square-foot-gardening spacing).
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)
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
Some links on this page go to retailers we may eventually earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a genuine consensus of positive, independent reviews — see the sources cited on each item.
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)