Cutting Johnson & Stokes' Earliest Cabbage for Market. Photographed June 1st, in the Field of Messrs. Myers & Bowman, the well-known Philadelphia Market Gardeners. This was the first Home-grown Cabbage in Philadelphia Markets.
This system may be modified so as to include six or more rows of inverted cabbage, the heap being flat instead of wedge-shaped on top. It does not turn water so well, but in practice is usually satisfactory. A good plan is to use about 6 inches of soil, and to add straw or litter as the cold increases.
Under a steady low temperature it is no trouble to keep cabbage through the winter, but it is hard to provide against the many changes of our variable climate.
Johnson & Stokes' Matchless Late Flat Dutch Cabbage.
Where heads are to be carried over for seed, or where it is intended to head up soft cabbages during the winter (a feasible thing) the roots are set downward instead of upward. If care be taken to remove the roots without much injury, they may be set in furrows or trenches, and the earth heaped over the cabbages just as in the several ways above mentioned, and they will make decided growth during their life under ground. In fact, a cabbage with any sort of immature head in November will, under proper management, be in good marketable condition in March or April.
Solid freezing in the trenches is not necessarily destructive, but if the temperature falls much below 15° (at the point occupied by the heads), there is danger that they will perish. They may be in good edible condition after such severe freezing, but the chances are that they will fail to grow if set out for seed. The cabbage decays with a strong, offensive smell when its tissues finally break down after repeated changes of temperature and moisture. A uniform temperature is favored by the use of earth in storage, and though storage in buildings and cellars is quite feasible, there is nothing better or cheaper than the soil of the open field.