Cabbage
Cabbage
Food Plant
A leafy vegetable that packs its leaves into a tight head — and the ancestor, with its many bred forms, of kale, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts.
💡 Fun Facts
- We grow cabbage for its tight ball of leaves, which we eat raw, boiled, or turned into sauerkraut.
- If it is left in the ground into a second year, it shoots up a tall stalk of yellow flowers.
- Kale, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts were all bred from this one wild plant.
📅 Through the Year
- Flowering:April to June
- Fruiting:June to July
Name Story
Brassica oleracea
means “the kitchen-garden cabbage”
What does its name mean?
- Brassica — cabbageLatin — the old name for cabbage
- oleracea — of the vegetable gardenLatin olus ‘pot-herb, kitchen vegetable’
The first word is the old Latin name for cabbage; the second means ‘of the vegetable garden’. It fits perfectly, because this one wild plant was shaped by gardeners into cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts — a whole kitchen garden from a single species.