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.
Mature height: 1-1.5 ft
Method: Start indoors: Start indoors from seed, then transplant outside. It needs a head start most zones can't give it by direct-sowing alone.
When to plant cabbage, by zone
Every zone cabbage grows in. Pick your zone in the header and it will be highlighted here. Each zone links to its full page.
| Zone | Start indoors | Sow or plant out | Harvest |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2a & 2b | Apr 8–Apr 15 | May 6–May 13 | Jul 15–Jul 22 |
| 3a & 3b | Apr 18–Apr 25 | May 16–May 23 | Jul 25–Aug 1 |
| 4a & 4b | Apr 3–Apr 10 | May 1–May 8 | Jul 10–Jul 17 |
| 5a & 5bSpring window | Mar 29–Apr 5 | Apr 26–May 3 | Jul 5–Jul 12 |
| Fall window | Jun 15–Jun 29 | Jul 13–Jul 27 | Sep 21–Oct 5 |
| 6a & 6bSpring window | Mar 14–Mar 21 | Apr 11–Apr 18 | Jun 20–Jun 27 |
| Fall window | Jun 25–Jul 9 | Jul 23–Aug 6 | Oct 1–Oct 15 |
| 7a & 7bSpring window | Feb 27–Mar 6 | Mar 27–Apr 3 | Jun 5–Jun 12 |
| Fall window | Jul 5–Jul 19 | Aug 2–Aug 16 | Oct 11–Oct 25 |
| 8a & 8bSpring window | Feb 11–Feb 18 | Mar 11–Mar 18 | May 20–May 27 |
| Fall window | Jul 21–Aug 4 | Aug 18–Sep 1 | Oct 27–Nov 10 |
| 9a & 9bSpring window | Jan 4–Jan 11 | Feb 1–Feb 8 | Apr 12–Apr 19 |
| Fall window | Aug 15–Aug 29 | Sep 12–Sep 26 | Nov 21–Dec 5 |
| 10a & 10bFall window | Aug–Dec | Sep–Jan | ~70 days after transplanting |
Harvest dates are about 70 days after the sow or plant-out date, not after starting seeds indoors.
Zone 2 sows before zone 3 here, which looks wrong and is not. USDA zones rank winter cold, not season length, and zone 2 is mostly interior Alaska, where hard winters come with warm summers. More on what a zone measures.
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. Needs well-drained soil. Amend with lime if soil pH falls below 6.2.
Good companions for cabbage
- Onion: Onion scent is reputed to confuse cabbage moths. The research behind this is real but garlic-specific (field trials intercropping garlic with cabbage reduced diamondback moth damage): onion hasn't been tested the same way, so treat the onion version as a reasonable extrapolation, not a directly measured result.
Full companion guide, including what to keep away from cabbage →
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) Buy seeds: Botanical Interests · High Mowing Organic Seeds
- 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) Buy seeds: True Leaf Market · High Mowing Organic Seeds
Why each variety is listed comes from the source shown next to it. We haven't grown these ourselves yet, so treat this as a research-backed starting point, not a personal endorsement. The buy links are separate from those sources: they go to seed suppliers that sell that exact variety, and we may earn a commission on some of them.
Where to buy cabbage seeds
Botanical Interests · True Leaf Market · Burpee · High Mowing Organic Seeds (each supplier's cabbage seeds)
The varieties we recommend above each have their own buy links, for the suppliers that sell that exact variety.
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Some links on this page also go to other retailers we may earn a commission from as an affiliate, at no extra cost to you. We only recommend products with a clear consensus of positive, independent reviews, or ones we bought and use ourselves. Each item on our gear page says which.
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)
Pin this for later
Growing Cabbage: A full-season brassica that rewards picking the right maturity window for your climate more than any single technique.
Save to Pinterest