First Harvested Head of Red Cabbage

The color of my harvested cabbage was absolutely beautiful, almost black. The flavor is much more mild than the grocery store-bought over-grown heads of cabbage I'm accustomed to.

Planted back in September, this showy purple cabbage plant takes its time to get to maturity- but the results are worth it. I recommend harvesting when the cabbage is just a little larger than a baseball.  An additional benefit to growing red cabbage is its beautiful blue hue. It really adds a lovely dimension to a diversified garden bed and the plant gets big and showy leaves, though remains low growing. 

Fertilizer- Filled bed with dried wood and dead Rosemary twigs for natural pest control and to create a moist hugelkultur-like environment to reduce watering needs. Used Square foot garden organic soil, steer manure, bone and blood meal in initial bed prep. Periodically added in coffee and tea grounds, watered a couple times with fish emulsion and added some chicken manure towards the end. Voila!

Recipe for delicious Red Cabbage Slaw.