0:01 what is going on everyone welcome to
0:03 another very exciting episode right here
0:05 on the Empire Gardener Channel in
0:06 today's episode we're gonna be doing
0:08 another Emma Gardner redo this is where
0:10 we take an older Emma Gardner video and
0:12 we redo it with better video quality
0:15 better public speaking skills and I'm no
0:17 longer an adolescent So today we're
0:20 going to be redoing how to grow cabbage
0:22 and so with that hopefully you guys are
0:24 going to enjoy let's go [Music]
0:27 [Music]
0:30 so the first step to growing cabbage is
0:31 successfully is understanding the soil
0:33 now this is where a lot of gardeners go
0:35 wrong because when you look at cabbages
0:37 you think oh this is beautiful Lush
0:39 plant it's super green it's a leafy
0:41 green crop it probably needs tons of
0:43 nutrients and if you stop there you'd be
0:45 correct they do need tons of nutrients
0:47 but the soil type is really what throws
0:49 a lot of gardeners off they actually
0:52 because they're a Brassica like a more
0:55 compacted soil not compacted as in like
0:57 you could make pottery out of it but
0:59 they do like kind of a lack of air gaps
1:01 and that's because when you grow
1:04 brassicas any Brassica but especially
1:06 cabbages they're very prone to what's
1:08 known as root not nematodes and root not
1:11 nematodes thrive in very aerated very
1:14 fertile soil and so what I prefer to do
1:16 when I'm growing cabbages is I pick a
1:18 spot in my garden that I have not yet
1:20 amended with lots of compost I will
1:22 still amend it yes I will still amend it
1:24 with a little bit but I let my soil kind
1:26 of compact over time and that's going to
1:28 reduce the air gaps and it's going to
1:30 allow me to actually help compact the
1:33 soil around the roots which has been
1:35 proven by many many different soil
1:37 scientists to actually reduce the risk
1:39 of root not nematodes by up to 75
1:41 percent so what we have done is we
1:43 picked a bed that we actually kind of
1:46 let kind of slightly degrade again not a
1:48 bad thing if you've got
1:50 nutrients so we're going to be using a
1:52 granular fertilizer to provide the
1:54 nutrients we are growing in you know
1:58 just aged compost it's just compost over
2:00 time will break down and degrade and
2:01 start to compact that's what happens
2:04 naturally so rather than fluff this bed
2:06 up and make it absolutely pristine and
2:07 perfect like we would normally we're
2:10 going to go in a slightly compacted soil
2:12 and so you'll notice this soil has a
2:15 slight grayer color to it it's slightly
2:17 more Dusty and broken down and that's
2:19 very very normal and it's very good for
2:22 brassicas so what we're going to do is
2:25 we're going to dig a hole
2:28 and we're going to plant our plants
2:30 okay we're going to talk about lots more
2:31 on how to grow these but I want to show
2:33 you what we do here get two for the
2:36 price of one nice all right so what
2:38 we've done we dug our hole
2:40 we're going to fertilize
2:41 super important we'll talk about
2:43 fertilizer in a second and we're going
2:46 to plant our cabbage now
2:48 it's going to sound crazy but what we
2:49 want to do
2:51 is we don't want this to be nice and
2:52 loose because we don't want to run the
2:54 risk of getting root not nematodes what
2:56 we're going to do is we're going to take
2:58 our fist or our Palm we're going to press
2:59 press
3:01 we're going to compact that soil
3:04 around the plant now you might be
3:06 thinking holy cow Luke has absolutely
3:09 lost his mind and I in fact haven't this
3:11 is how you can grow very successful
3:14 cabbages and most soil scientists will
3:16 tell you that to grow the best cabbages
3:19 you need a soil that's about 50 percent
3:21 more compacted than others than other
3:23 crops in your garden so whereas a tomato
3:25 you plant your plant throw it over top
3:27 you want that nice loose soil for good
3:30 root development however the the roots
3:32 on cabbages are prone to root not
3:34 nematodes and that compaction reduces
3:37 the air gaps which then reduce the root
3:39 not nematode or the risk of root not
3:41 nematode I should say and so that is a
3:44 step that so many gardeners do not get
3:46 and if you take anything from this video
3:50 it is compacting the soil now it is very
3:51 important to have the right type of soil
3:53 because if you do this with clay soil
3:55 you're going to completely collapse the
3:57 soil it's going to completely suffocate
3:58 the roots and it's going to kill the
4:00 plant over time with things like root
4:02 rot because it's going to hold on to too
4:04 much moisture in the soil this soil can compact
4:05 compact
4:08 right it can compact if I squeeze it
4:11 tight but it also still breaks apart
4:13 right that's what you want to go for you
4:15 want to go for a soil that is fertile
4:17 and it is you know loose but it can be
4:19 compacted without you know without
4:21 killing the without being detrimental
4:22 and killing the plant so that's the
4:24 first thing is the soil now let's talk
4:26 about fertilizing all right so now we're
4:27 going to talk about fertilizing which is
4:30 really important as well you see all
4:33 this growth does not just happen because
4:35 of magic it happens because of high
4:37 nitrogen now if you remember cabbage is
4:40 a leafy crop and the more leaves it
4:42 creates the larger and Tighter the head
4:44 can be and so we really want to focus on
4:46 nitrogen now we are fertilizing with
4:49 Trifecta which is a 5 10 4 it's 5 5
4:52 nitrogen 10 phosphorus and four percent
4:54 potassium it also has beneficial
4:55 bacteria and fungi as well as trace
4:58 minerals in this fertilizer so it's well
5:01 balanced I always recommend going with a
5:03 well-balanced fertilizer simply because
5:05 it's like a multivitamin you should be
5:08 taking a multivitamin yes you might need
5:09 iron but it's also not going to hurt you
5:11 to get some other vitamins in your diet
5:15 as well right so plants need nitrogen
5:17 all plants need nitrogen to create leafy
5:20 green growth but especially your leafy
5:22 crops they focus primarily on nitrogen
5:24 so we're going to focus a lot on
5:25 nitrogen now you don't have to use
5:27 Trifecta you can use something like
5:28 blood meal you could use something like
5:31 a fish fertilizer a you know chicken
5:33 manure anything like that that's going
5:35 to have lots and lots of nitrogen in it
5:37 because what we want to do is we want to
5:40 encourage lots of leafy green growth now
5:41 you want to make sure that the
5:43 fertilizer you go with is not going to
5:46 be so strong that it ends up burning
5:47 your plants a lot of gardeners make a
5:50 mistake of going with like a urea which
5:53 is like a 60 zero zero sixty percent by
5:55 weight of just nitrogen it's very harsh
5:58 it has a lot of nitrogen but it's so
6:00 concentrated and so harsh that it can
6:02 end up too much of any good thing can be
6:03 a bad thing right so that's why I like
6:05 to go with something gentle and well
6:07 balanced but it's got a good focus on
6:09 those macronutrients to help provide
6:11 that plant growth that we're looking for
6:12 all right so the next thing we're
6:14 talking about is spacing now spacing is
6:16 really important for your cabbages
6:18 because they're very small now but they
6:20 won't be very small for very long
6:23 cabbages have absolutely huge leaves and
6:25 those leaves will definitely trample and
6:27 overshadow other plants they're going to
6:29 compete and so what we want to do is we
6:32 want to space our cabbages out about 10
6:35 inches that I find is a really good
6:37 spacing for me you can go a little bit
6:38 further than that if you have the space
6:40 to afford or if you're concerned about
6:43 overcrowding but in my experience with
6:45 the varieties that I choose 10 inches is
6:47 good enough for me so I'm going to go
6:48 out about 10 inches
6:52 and then I'm going to have a plant and
6:54 then another plant and this way my
6:57 plants are close enough to where the uh
6:59 the leaves are gently going to be
7:00 overlapping each other and they're not
7:02 going to be you know really tightly
7:04 crowding each other but that overlapping
7:06 is good because it's going to shade out
7:07 the soil and as we talk about having
7:09 shaded soil is really important it's
7:11 going to shade out things like weeds
7:12 it's going to help to hold moisture in
7:15 the soil it's also going to help to cool
7:17 the soil down so that the plants are
7:20 less stressed during hot days so lots of
7:22 benefits to having slight overlapping
7:24 leaves just you don't want them having a
7:26 boxing match with each other so it's
7:28 close but not too close
7:30 now you are going to notice that I'm
7:32 going from a green
7:35 to a purple now why am I doing that well
7:38 that's because there has been quite a
7:41 good amount of evidence that shows that
7:43 by inter cropping different colors of
7:46 cabbages actually helps with cabbage
7:48 moths now cabbage moths will hone in on
7:50 cabbage plants they're those white
7:52 little butterflies that you see flying
7:54 around they look like little fairy
7:56 butterflies but they're moths and they
7:59 will lay their eggs on brassicas now by
8:01 alternating green and purple green and
8:04 purple or green purple and like a like a
8:06 whiter cabbage or something like that it
8:07 helps to kind of break up that color
8:10 variation which in some studies has
8:12 shown to prevent things like Cabbage
8:14 Moth or at least reduce them so we're
8:15 going to be alternating our cabbages and
8:18 we've done that for years and I can
8:19 really attribute that to a lot of the
8:21 reason why we don't have as many Cabbage
8:24 Moth problems we've always done that
8:26 ever since I read that study I thought well
8:27 well
8:29 why not so we're going to be doing that
8:32 and that's something that really plagues
8:33 people but if you find that you're
8:36 having problems with cabbage moths the
8:37 next thing I want to talk about is pest
8:39 deterrin so with pests it's super
8:42 important that we control pests before
8:44 they become a big problem and with
8:46 cabbage moths it can become a really big
8:48 problem really fast and so what we're
8:50 going to do is we're going to enter crop
8:53 green and purple to help prevent things
8:55 like Cabbage Moth but then we're also
8:58 going to use a product called BT it's
9:00 known as bacillus thuregensis and it is
9:03 a beneficial bacteria that you spray
9:06 onto the leaves of your cabbages and
9:08 when it becomes ingested by any type of
9:10 caterpillar it also works on tomato
9:12 hornworm it works on tent caterpillars
9:14 in your fruit trees very very very
9:17 effective but it only affects things
9:20 like caterpillars and so you're going to
9:23 spray that onto your plants
9:25 you can even spray it on right now it's
9:27 totally fine it's not going to hurt them
9:29 at all and then it's going to help
9:33 protect them the final form of pest
9:35 protection well there's actually two
9:36 more uh
9:38 next form of past protection is
9:40 marigolds now in the beginning we talked
9:41 about root not nematodes and how
9:45 planting marigolds next to uh next to
9:46 other crops can help with root not
9:49 nematodes in our intercropping video If
9:50 you haven't seen that video go check it
9:52 out it's amazing it's absolutely awesome
9:55 but this video comes back full circle to
9:58 talk about how we want to enter crop to
9:59 prevent things like root not nematodes
10:02 remember how I said we're compacting the
10:03 soil to reduce the risk of root not
10:06 nematodes by up to 75 percent well you
10:08 can also help to reduce the risk of root
10:10 not nematodes by about 50 percent with
10:13 the help of marigolds marigolds excrete
10:15 a chemical in the soil that helps
10:17 prevent things like root not nematodes
10:19 and so Michigan State University
10:20 actually did a study on this about I
10:22 want to say about five seven years ago
10:25 or so and uh it was very very effective
10:28 so we're going to apply those and we can
10:29 plant those in just different parts of
10:32 the Garden close proximity to the plants
10:34 and that's really going to help out as
10:37 well so you can use that and then the
10:39 very final form of pest control is with
10:41 a product called tool it's just a
10:43 basically tutu material that you drape
10:46 over your plants and that helps to keep
10:49 things like the the Cabbage moths from
10:51 getting into the cabbages all right so
10:53 now that we talked about pests we talked
10:55 about fertilizing we talked about
10:57 spacing and soil I really want to touch
11:00 on watering so when it comes to Growing
11:03 cabbages a lot of people think that they
11:04 can be treated just like any other
11:06 Brassica now like kale for instance
11:08 which planted some kale over here kale
11:11 is pretty drought resistant it's a leafy
11:13 green much like cabbage but if it
11:16 doesn't get rain for a week or two it
11:17 kind of just is okay with it it doesn't
11:19 love it but it's not really going to
11:22 suffer whereas cabbage cabbage needs
11:25 lots of regular water why is that well
11:27 that's because cabbage forms a really
11:30 tight head and that head is all leaves
11:33 it's about 95 water each Leaf is you
11:35 know in you know independent of one
11:36 another but they fold over top and each
11:39 other to form a head and the tighter
11:41 that head is the the more it's important
11:43 you get the water into the plant the
11:45 reason why is because cabbage is when
11:46 they have a very tight head like that
11:49 and they start to to dry out what will
11:51 happen is the leaves will shrink they'll
11:53 shrivel because they're running out of
11:55 water and then what will happen is that
11:57 head will kind of create a little air
11:59 gap there and that air gap can actually
12:01 Steam and that's why cabbage heads will
12:03 actually start to form mold or rot in
12:05 the center of the cabbage and that's
12:08 known as head rot or even like there's
12:09 gray mold that can affect them white
12:12 mold that can affect them and that's
12:14 simply from that air gap and that steam
12:16 being created from the shriveling of
12:18 leaves so you want to keep those leaves
12:21 plump the entire time now I find that
12:22 I'll like right now we just planted our
12:24 our cabbage they could use a little
12:26 water so I'll find I'll Water my
12:29 cabbages when they're needed we have
12:32 cores in these beds so about 12 inches
12:35 down we 10 12 inches down we planted or
12:37 we not we didn't plant We buried our
12:39 straw bales like we do normally if you
12:40 haven't seen those videos go check them
12:42 out and that holds moisture in the soil
12:44 which is important but when the plants
12:46 need water we're going to be watering
12:48 I'll find in the summertime that might
12:51 be once a week or so it's not that often
12:52 but it is very important to check your
12:55 soil know when they need water and to
12:56 water them when they do need it because
12:58 just simply turning a blind eye to it
13:00 can actually be a really bad thing for cabbages
13:00 cabbages
13:02 all right the next step to successfully
13:04 growing cabbage is understanding the
13:05 sunlight now when it comes to sunlight
13:07 and cabbage they really break all the
13:09 rules now there's an old saying that
13:11 says root shoots and Roots shoots and
13:13 fruits needs full sun that's about five
13:15 to seven hours whereas leaves needs
13:17 partial sun and you might think well I'm
13:19 growing these for leaves I'll give them
13:21 partial sun three to five hours no
13:22 problem they don't need full sun all the
13:24 time you'd be wrong
13:27 cabbage breaks all those rules cabbage
13:29 loves five to seven hours of nice full
13:30 direct sun and if you give them more
13:32 than that they're not going to complain
13:34 this spot right here gets between like
13:36 11 and 12 hours of nice full direct sun
13:38 and they're going to thrive and the
13:40 reason why is because yes they are a
13:43 leaf but those leaves the more they can
13:45 create the bigger the plant can get the
13:46 larger the head can be and so again it
13:49 goes back to you know nutrients it goes
13:51 back to watering leaves are the most
13:54 important thing to a cabbage and so the
13:56 bigger the Cabbage gets the more energy
13:57 it needs to produce that head and so
14:00 giving it nice full sun is so important
14:01 now if you only have five hours
14:04 absolutely it's going to do fine but any
14:06 less than that it is really going to
14:08 struggle to form a nice tight head and
14:09 that's one thing a lot of gardeners
14:11 struggle with is they say my cabbages
14:12 are just kind of like forming these
14:13 really loose leaves it's not really
14:15 forming ahead I look at the picture and
14:17 the very first thing I can tell is it's
14:19 in the shade I ask how much sun does it
14:21 get and they say I don't know maybe
14:24 three to four hours well that'll do it
14:26 that's exactly why so if you don't get
14:27 sunlight right you can get everything
14:29 else right and doesn't matter so make
14:31 sure you get sunlight right give them
14:33 nice full sun direct sun if you can give
14:35 it that for five to seven or even more
14:36 hours and they're not going to complain
14:38 so that is the next most important thing
14:40 and the final thing that is really
14:42 important to Growing cabbages has
14:44 everything to do with the season that
14:46 you plant it all right the final thing I
14:47 want to talk about is the seasons in
14:49 which you're planting your cabbage and
14:51 the seasons between varieties so if that
14:52 doesn't make a whole lot of sense let me
14:55 break this down so when it comes to your
14:57 planting Seasons you can plant in two
14:59 different seasons of the gardening
15:01 season you can plant in the spring for a
15:03 summer Harvest and you can plant in the
15:05 late summer for a fall Harvest and we'll
15:07 be doing that basically right now we
15:09 have our our cabbage in the ground and
15:11 it's going to be ready to harvest right
15:13 around the early to maybe mid part of
15:15 July but then there's gonna be a gap of
15:16 time where we're not going to be
15:17 planting anything because it'll be too
15:21 hot and then around probably late August
15:23 very early September we're going to put
15:25 seeds in pots if not directly in the
15:26 ground and we're going to be growing
15:28 those for a late fall Harvest basically
15:31 late fall almost basically early winter
15:32 there'll be snow on the ground but we're
15:33 going to be harvesting these beautiful
15:35 heads of cabbage it'll be one of the
15:36 last things we're pulling out of the
15:38 garden and it's a very simple way to
15:41 grow two successions of cabbage in one
15:42 growing season so that's kind of
15:45 seasonally how we plant cabbage but then
15:47 there's also seasonality between
15:50 varieties as well so there is known as a
15:52 early season cabbage a mid-season
15:54 cabbage and a late cabbage and that
15:56 basically just coincides with how many
15:58 days it takes for the Cabbage to form a
16:00 head and so you have early cabbage
16:02 varieties like the Copenhagen Market
16:05 cabbage that's an early variety you have
16:07 a Wakefield cabbage right which is a
16:11 mid-season variety you have a uh it
16:13 could be like a late Flat Dutch cabbage
16:15 right that's a later variety early
16:17 season varieties will mature in right
16:20 around 65 to 70 days mid-season
16:21 varieties are going to be right around
16:24 70 to 75 days and then a later variety
16:27 is can be right around 80 to 85 days and
16:28 so that also can kind of help you out
16:29 when you're picking the varieties that
16:31 you want to choose because right now
16:33 basically the world is our oyster we can
16:36 plant early mid and late season cabbages
16:38 however as we get closer to planting
16:40 fall cabbage we're not going to be
16:42 planting late season cabbages because we
16:44 don't have enough time to get those to
16:46 fully mature and form ahead so we're
16:48 going to be exclusively planting our
16:49 early season cabbages and knowing this
16:51 and having this information in your back
16:53 pocket can really help you out to not
16:55 only maximizing how much cabbage you're
16:57 growing but having more success growing
16:58 cabbage so those are all the things that
17:00 I wanted to condense into today's video
17:02 I hope you guys enjoyed I hope you
17:04 learned something new if you did make
17:05 sure to hit the like button subscribe if
17:07 you haven't already and let me know in
17:08 the comments box down below if you want
17:11 to see other Mi Gardener redos and what
17:13 you'd like to see redone we've done over
17:16 1500 videos and I can safely say that in
17:18 the 11 years I've been doing this the
17:21 information has stayed the same or very
17:23 close to the same but the video quality
17:25 and my public speaking has improved
17:29 exponentially so so uh definitely let me
17:31 know what you'd like to see redone I
17:32 don't ever want to have information that
17:34 you don't want to watch because it's too
17:36 terrible of quality and so just let me
17:38 know and I'll be happy to do that so as
17:39 always this is Luke from the Mi Gardener
17:41 Channel reminding you to grow bigger
