I read this in a BackHome article... "Rather than have all the cabbages develop at the same time, you can delay some of the heads by twisting them and thus spread out the bounty." Twisting them? At what size? Before they are fully developed? Has anyone done this?

-- Lisa Langford (langfordfam@proaxis.com), February 21, 2002

Answers

My uncle used to do this. He would take a developing head and give it a twist until he heard some cracking noises. If he wanted it slower yet, he would twist again in a few more days. He was afraid he would twist the head clean off if he twisted too hard at any one time. He always had a big garden, and not even a growing family could use 10 heads of cabbage all ripe at the same time. Also, after he cut the head off he used to leave the bottom in the ground, and it would give him 3-4 small heads to take the place of the one big head! If the plant tried to se more than 3, though, he cut off the extras so he got heads big enough to mess with.

-- Terri (hooperterri@prodigy.net), February 21, 2002.

Thank You! I had never heard of twisting cabbages before. We'll give it a try if our crop shows signs of maturing earlier than our first market day. Oh, I learned about the little cabbages that come after the harvest of the central head last year. What a good deal that turned out to be! It worked for all varieties that we grow and we got a second harvest much faster than if we'd started over from seed.

-- Lisa Langford (langfordfam@proaxis.com), February 21, 2002.