Start This Fall Vegetable NOW for a Guaranteed Harvest.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Sow Arizona. As promised, I am back with my next video on what seeds you should be starting right now for your fall garden. Just as a time reference, today is July 20th and I am starting cabbage seeds. I'll be planting these cabbage seeds out in mid-September, so I want to give them a head start. Cabbages are a bit slow growing as well, kind of like the brussel sprouts and the onions and the celery that we talked about last week, but definitely not that slow. Cabbages have a wide variety of days to maturity. Some of them are as low as 50 days and some of them are as long as 120 days. So it really depends on what kind of cabbage you're growing, so you need to check your seed packet and if you have one that is on the longer side, then you definitely want to get that started right away. There are a few things to consider before you plant your cabbages and that is, do you even like eating cabbage? I know so many people, and I'm guilty of this too, of planting things that they don't even like to eat and it's because, oh well it's a garden, I should be planting radishes or onions or cabbages or tomatoes. But if you don't like those things, they have no business taking up space in your garden. The second thing you want to think about is, does it taste better than store-bought? There are many different reasons for gardening and one of those is growing something that tastes better than what you can buy in the store. Tomatoes are a great example of that. I think store-bought tomatoes are always disappointing in their flavor and in their texture. If you're buying store-bought tomatoes, you understand what I mean. If you pick up the organic or the heirloom tomatoes, they're usually pretty disappointing and not what you were hoping they would be. So cabbages, that is up to you. If you think that is worthwhile for taking up space in your garden, then by all means plant it. Just keep in mind that cabbages take between 12 and 18 inches of space per plant, so they definitely take up a bit of space. So you want to make sure that you are using your space in your garden for the highest value crop. So if you have considered whether you like them and whether it is worth it to you to grow and you still think yes, you want to grow them, then let's proceed. The next thing that you want to think about is do you want to eat them fresh or do you want to grow extra so that you can preserve them for later with things like sauerkraut or maybe you want to freeze dry or dehydrate them or something like that. And lastly, you want to consider the number of people who are going to be eating those cabbages because that is going to help you calculate how many plants you need. If you just have one adult eating, then you are looking at between three and five plants per person or per adult. If your family consists of more than one adult, then you want to multiply that by the number of adults. So three to five plants for one or six to ten for two people. Or if you have a child, maybe it's half that number because obviously little kids aren't going to be eating as much as a full-sized adult. But if you are going to be planting enough cabbages to preserve, maybe you're into making sauerkraut, then you want to plan on more like five to ten cabbages per person. That will give you enough for some fresh eating and also for some preserving. The next thing I want to talk about is seed viability. So for cabbages, you're looking about four years for good viable seeds with a good germination rate. After that, the germination rate is going to go down pretty significantly per year and so you are going to have to either plant extra to accommodate for that or you're going to have to buy new seed. I've been on a quest to try to use up as much as the old seed as I can. I have got a lot of seeds in the house and some of them are quite old. I actually planted some San Marzano tomato seeds that I had had since 2011 and believe it or not, those actually had pretty good germination so I was really surprised. But for cabbages, you're looking at about four years. So as I was looking through all of these seeds that I had, I have quite a few, I was really tempted to buy extra seeds because there are always new varieties, new hybrids that do really well in certain circumstances, or just really beautiful varieties. But I decided no, I'm going to make myself stick to my promise and only plant what I've got. To make up for the fact that some of these are actually from 2020, I'm going to be planting extra of those. So if you look at your seed packet on the top or on the bottom flap on the back, you are going to see a date and it will say sell by. And that sell by date just means that if those aren't sold, they're generally sent back to the seed company. But if you've already got them, it's not like they are going to spoil or they're going to be bad. It's just that the germination rate is going to decrease every year after that date. And so for some of these, they are 2024 and 2025, but I did notice that a couple of them are actually from 2020, like this calabose cabbage right here. But I am just going to plant extra to make up for that. Okay, all right, citronella plants have failed me. We're going to talk about variety information in just a minute, but I really want to go over really quickly how you can manage the harvest of your cabbages. So if you're planting cabbages right now in mid-July and you plant them all at once, no matter if you're planting 10 or 20 or 90 or whatever it happens to be, you're going to have those cabbages pretty much ready to harvest at the same time. So you have to ask yourself, can you handle 10 cabbages at once or 20 or more? And if so, what are you going to do with them? And if not, then there are a few things that you can do to help manage the flow of that so that they don't all come to ready to harvest at the same time. One of those is succession sowing, and that is where you plant seeds every two or three weeks or whatever it happens to be. If they're really quickly maturing things like lettuces or arugula or radishes, then you could do it every two weeks. If it's something like cabbages, where you'll get a really big head of cabbage and it's going to take you a few days to eat it, then you could do it every three to four weeks or whatever your schedule allows for. So succession planting will really help you manage the harvest. The other thing that you can do is decide which varieties you are going to grow because just like tomato plants or anything else in the garden, cabbages actually have different days to maturity. Some of them are as little as 50 days and some of them are as long as 120. So what I like to do is choose a little bit from each group from early, mid, and late maturing cabbages. And I made a little list so that I didn't forget anything. I have a few of my favorites that do really well every year. So I'm going to put a little graphic up on the screen. Feel free to pause the video and take a few notes if you want to try some of the ones that I mentioned. But the first one is the Golden Acre and the Golden Acre cabbage is a nice green cabbage and it matures in 65 days. Another cabbage which I really like is the Tete Noir and that is a purple cabbage. It's a French heirloom variety and that is also at 65 days. Another is the early Jersey Wakefield cabbage and this is a really nice size big green cabbage and that's about 60 days. So that's pretty fast. And the Copenhagen Market at 60 days is also pretty fast. The Copenhagen Market is a really common one. You'll see that one a lot. I've tried all of these and they've done really really well for me. And I saved the best one for last and I actually already mentioned it and it is the Little Tiara F1 variety. The Tiara F1 is a hybrid. I got my original seeds from Johnny's and I really like this one because it's a mini cabbage. So it will fit really well in containers, raised beds, or just small spaces. So if you want to tuck some in here and there you totally could. I grew some Tiara F1 cabbages amongst my nasturtiums last year and they were really pretty. It'll give you a smaller just about a one pound head of cabbage. So it's a little bit smaller than a normal sized head of cabbage but I think that it's really tasty and I have had really good luck with it. So if you're growing a smaller space the Tiara F1 is a good one. I've also got another mini cabbage to talk about that is more in the middle season. They mature at a rate of about 70 to 80 days or so. And that one I will just cut to the chase. That one is the CaraFlex F1. So it's very similar to my name only it's spelled with a c instead of a k. So it's the CaraFlex F1 and that one is 75 days and so that's one that one's not too bad. It's a really small green cabbage as well and it's supposed to give you a one to two pound cabbage head so that's really good. The Red Acre is one of my favorites. I've had really good luck with that one. That one is about 75 to 100 days so it takes a little bit longer. If you want to harvest it smaller then it can be in the mid-season maturing category and if you want to let it go a little bit longer then it can be in the late season. But it's a really beautiful purple one. The Savoy cabbages there are several different varieties that I've tried and I have to say I think the Savoy cabbages are pretty much foolproof at least in my garden. I have never had bad luck with a Savoy cabbage. They seem to do really well. I'm not sure why that is but they do really well. They're green and they kind of have that really bumpy texture. I think they're very cute cabbages. So those are anywhere from about 80 days or so. I think those are definitely a mid-season cabbage and they're a full-sized cabbage so you should try that one. And then lastly is the Filderkraut and the Filderkraut is a really funny really pointy cabbage. It can give you a cabbage that's up to 10 pounds which is just crazy. So if you're really into sauerkraut or if you really like eating cabbage definitely try that one. The germination rate on that has always been great for me and the days to maturity is 75 to 90 days. So that's a bit on the longer side when it comes to the mid-season cabbages. And then the long one the long season cabbage I just have two. I have the Calabose cabbage. I'll show you the little picture of that. Let me see if I can shuffle through here. This is so cute y'all. It's a little pointy cabbage. I think it is so silly. I've had really good luck with this one. This one's 80 to 90 days so it's a little bit on the longer side and I really like it. It is purple as you saw and really cute. I love being able to combine different textures and colors and sizes in the garden. I just think it makes everything look really interesting. So try that one out. I think you'll like it. That's the one that had the sell by date of 2020. So I'm definitely going to be sowing a lot of extra seeds on that because that is six years past its sell by date which is just crazy. And then the last one is the Premium Late Flat Dutch and this one is a bigger sized cabbage too. It's green and it's instead of being perfectly round it's going to be a little bit squat or a little flat on top and that's why it's called the Flat Dutch. And the days to maturity on that is quite a bit longer. That's at a hundred days. Now I was oogling a beautiful green and purple cabbage. I forget the name of it. It was like Verona something and it was on the Baker Creek website and that one was 120 days to maturity but I did not fall to the temptation of purchasing more cabbage seeds because as you can see I have got so many that I just need to use up way more than I need even for this year. So I think what I'm going to do is just a whole big mix of things. I'm going to choose green, purple, Savoy, pointy, round, flat, mini, all of the different things. There's definitely a cabbage for everyone. So when it comes to interesting cabbages I think Baker Creek is definitely a great bet for finding some really cool ones. I'm going to put the seed companies down below that I really like to buy from. Southern Exposure is another good one that has really cool varieties I think but there are just so many different good seed companies to choose from. I really try to go for independently owned or smaller companies if I can but that of course is not a rule that's just something I try to do as much as possible. And then if you want to get something that is more of a hybrid I find that Johnny's is a really good source for hybrid varieties of all sorts of different vegetables. Hybrids are not GMOs so don't be worried about that. Hybrids are just a mixture where scientists have taken one parent and then another parent and tried to combine them in an organized and scientific way to be able to get certain traits. So maybe they grow well in greenhouses or maybe they grow well in small spaces or they grow well in hot weather or there's some other trait that they're really breeding for. But it's just scientists, plant breeders, breeding cabbages or other things like tomatoes or lettuces or cucumbers or anything else really for specific traits so they are not genetically modified so don't worry about that. So if you have a certain growing environment and you're really looking for a specific kind of plant that can grow well there I would definitely spend a bit of time on Johnny's website because I think that you can find pretty much something for anyone there. If all I had were raised beds like the stock tanks that I have in my little raised bed garden area I would go for all of the minis I think because those are going to give you the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to space. You could get a lot of plants into these containers and I forgot to mention the Chinese cabbages and those are going to be the Napa style the really long cabbages that are very compact and although some of them are earlier maturing there are some that are a little bit later. One of the ones I have I think it's the Hilton variety from Baker Creek that one has a days to maturity at 70 days I think so that one is a little bit longer but there are some that are in the 50 day range so definitely check out Napa or Chinese cabbages if you've got a bit smaller space or if you want something that is a little earlier maturing. Now I did see on the Hilton variety that it actually needs nearly as much space as a regular cabbage so definitely check on the variety there are some that are more compact than others some that are quicker growing than others so it's all variety dependent but that's a couple of ideas for you if you are growing in a smaller space. All right I have been yacking away and definitely not planting away so I'm going to grab this early Jersey Wakefield and I am going to be planting some more I'm going to be planting about one to two rows in each of these seed trays so that's either six or twelve plants depending on if I do one or two rows and that's because I have a lot of space in my garden but like I said if I were going to plant in a much smaller space I would definitely go for the mini cabbages and the Chinese cabbages but I'm going to plant away and hopefully you all will have a really good time choosing your cabbages because I think that there are so many different varieties that are super super fun. I'm thinking it would be really helpful just to divide up some of the fall things based upon variety so I think what I will do is cabbages today as we're doing and tomorrow I am going to be ambitious and I am going to try to cover another seed variety that way we can break it up otherwise if I talked to you about all of the fall varieties that we can be planting right now this video would probably be two hours long because you all know I always have to share all of the different varieties that I want to try or that I have tried so that you guys don't have to be the guinea pigs because I've certainly had some fails and it's really nice to be able to share what works of course we all have different garden spaces and what works in mine may not work as well for you or vice versa so keep that in mind but I think that there are a lot of varieties that will just do really well in lots of different places so I think tomorrow I am going to be back with some leafy greens not all but some because there are a lot of really cool plants that we can grow during the winter time here in southern Arizona as well as a lot of other parts in the United States or wherever you're growing from so I guess that's your warning that I will be back every day this week to talk about what I'm planting in the garden for fall so last time we talked about the slow growing varieties like brussel sprouts and other things and today we talked about cabbages and I'm going to be sharing a few tomorrow with you so that you know exactly what you need to be planning and ordering and prepping for so you can get your seeds started too. I'm planting some of these a little bit early because I wanted to share them with you but you really don't need to start your seeds until August 1st so like I said today is July 20th and I am planting them a little bit early so that I can get a head start and I'm impatient and also I wanted to share them with you all of those things but really you have plenty of time to order seeds and get those in the mail or go pick them up from a local nursery so that you can get your seeds started in the house and also no pressure if you want to just start with seedlings that you purchase I'm sure those are going to be available sometime in mid to late August and so you should just check with your local garden center for that and you can stay on schedule then. Let's go over some of the basics if you want to start from seed you want to start those August 1st. To transplant seedlings that you purchased or the seedlings that you started from seed that will be mid-September and then if you want to sow seeds outside I would do that no earlier than mid-September. I had someone send me a question and ask couldn't they start the seeds outside right now and the answer is no you can't because the temperatures are just too high you're going to get poor germination or maybe even no germination and even if you do get some that germinate they are going to really really struggle in the heat that we're still having right now so you either have to start from seed indoors right now or hold off until mid-September if you want to sow them outside. I really hope this helps you all stay on track I'm going to keep planting I'm Kara from Sow Arizona thank you so much for watching I'll see you tomorrow