Seed for Cabbages

Paul & Becky’s Asturian Tree Cabbage

Although this is really a cabbage, it grows very much like a kale, so we've also included it here. It produces a 2 foot stalk with  a loose head on top. You simply take the huge leaves a few at a time to eat all year round. 

You can even keep it going for two years or more. Just cut it back when it tries to flower - it makes new growth, ideal for fresh cabbage in spring during the ‘hungry gap’. 

Cooks like a cabbage, rather than a kale, and also a key ingredient in the classic Spanish dish 'Caldo Gallego' - which is a delicious leaf, bean, and meat stew.

Tastes like cabbage, harvested like a kale . Short lived perennial provided the flowers are removed as they form.

150 seed, organic. £3.48

Durham Early

A very reliable old variety of spring cabbage with dark green solid conical hearts, usually ready towards the end of April.

300 seed £1.92

Georgia Wakefield Collards

An ancient variety of cabbage, pre-1850, that doesn’t really heart up but instead makes large loose rosettes of delicious tender leaves with white ribs. Rarely available!

Normally sown in autumn for spring greens, but unlike most cabbages, it’s unusually resistant to hot conditions, so you could try it as a summer cabbage too.

approx 250 seed £2.47

Wheelers’ Imperial Spring Cabbage

A well-known and trusted compact spring cabbage with leafy hearts of good flavour.

Dual-use: it can also be sown in spring to get loose-heads of greens in autumn. (thats the paler green in calendar below)

300 seed £1.89

‘Great Oxheart’ Summer/Autumn Cabbage

A traditional cabbage making medium sized pointy heads (about 3lb / 1.5kg) Normally sown in spring for a summer-autumn crop, it’s quite quick growing, ready in about 100 days.

Pointy, a decent size , and moderately quick.

300 seed £1.92

Stock: Out of stock, sorry.

‘Copenhagen’ Market Summer Cabbage

A very reliable & productive variety introduced by “H. Hartmann and Co.” right back in 1909. It quickly makes solid round heads 6 - 8” across, and the medium-sized plants are good for small gardens.

This did really well for us even in then terrible summer of 2024!

approx 300 seed £2.27

“Belarusskaya 455” Summer/Autumn Cabbage

This European cabbage is a great long-storing, hardy heirloom from Belarussia, near the border with Poland. It is one of best two we found in our 2017 trials of old ex-USSR varieties.

Productive! Makes flattened heads in about 100-130 days that are nice and tight, very pale green (almost white) , weighing 2 to 3kg.

Bred sometime before 1945 by the seed company Vniissok, from an even older Belarussian heirloom.Consider keeping your own seed, we don't produce much of it.

180 seed, organic. £2.99

Golden Acre Summer Cabbage

This is a really good summer cabbage that makes tight round heads that are a very attractive golden-green colour, and an excellent flavour. (The colour hasn't shown so well in the photo, but a row of them in the garden really does stand out glowingly.)

Sow relatively early in spring, and you can harvest at that useful period before the main summer crops get going.

approx 250 seed £2.14

Greyhound Summer/Autumn Cabbage

A traditional compact cabbage ideal for smaller plots, with not too many outer leaves and a nice dense conical head. Normally sown in spring for an early summer crop, this received the RHS Award of Garden Merit in 2002.

A much-loved variety that is suited to sowing and harvesting over a long period.

300 seed £1.92

‘Kalibos’ Summer/Autumn Cabbage -POINTY

It's very unusual to find a red cabbage this shape! This is a wonderful heirloom variety with pointy red heads, it's a quick-growing sweet cabbage for late summer or early autumn harvest.

Sow in spring for use mid-summer onwards.

about 200 seed £2.39

‘Rouge Tete Noir’ Late Summer/Early Autumn cabbage

A real unsung hero. We've offered it for years and never really praised it sufficiently, but looking at them on the field one autumn we realised again just what an excellent cabbage it is. With no care or attention it grew through the wet and drought and made great firm heads that the caterpillars and slugs left alone. It's fab! 

A super-reliable red round-headed variety for late summer & early autumn harvest, great shredded in salads or coleslaw as the deep red surface contrasts with the white flesh inside. 

We have found that red cabbages seem to be somewhat less affected by caterpillars, perhaps because they show up more to the birds on the red background?

Firm red heads, short stem. Sow in spring for use mid-summer onwards.

300 seed £2.27

‘Des Vertus’ Savoy Winter Cabbage

Also known as the Virtuous Cabbage, because it has many good qualities! This valued hardy heirloom from France makes large flattened heads that mature late in the season for harvest overwinter. 

We found an engraving of it in our copy of Vilmorin's famous book 'The Vegetable Garden' printed in 1885, and it looks very much the same after all these years.

Relatively cold-resistant and can be cut overwinter.

250 seed £2.05

‘Ironhead’ Savoy Early Winter Cabbage

A vigorous heirloom with large rounded heads of crinkled leaves, not as bobbly as teh others. One of the quicker winter cabbages, and is for taking from November on into the start of winter.

It makes a good round head, which is nice and tight to protect against mud and insects.

300 seed £1.92

‘Piacenza’ Savoy Winter Cabbage

A cold-resistant savoy from the town of Piacenza (in the Po Valley of Italy), with bright green leaves which are very finely savoyed.

Tight round head is quite crisp. Hardy.

300 seed £2.39

‘Saint Michael of Verona’ Purple Winter Cabbage

A large winter cabbage, with dark green leaves and deep purple highlights. Isn't it pretty? The heads can get to 5 lbs / 2.5 kg, and the leaves are fairly smooth so it doesn't really count as a savoy (crinkle-leaf) type, but they are slightly indented, this possibly helps with resistance to frost.

Large and attractive winter cabbage, ready in about 170 days.

300 seed £1.92