Peter Rabbit Cabbages

The Golden Acre cabbages are looking beautiful again, they remind me of the cabbages lined up neatly in Mr McGregor’s garden and I can understand why Peter Rabbit risked being pie supper to nibble upon the leafy beauties.

I have enjoyed regular little pickings of outer leaves and now the cabbages are starting to heart up.

Golden Acre is my favourite summer variety and I do believe I’ve found a winter variety to rival on looks and taste. I grew January King for the first time last year, a winter hardy savoy type which usually have deep crinkled leaves but this winter beauty looks more like a summer cabbage. However don’t let that fool you, they are indeed winter hardy and will happily tough out hard frosts and all that winter has to throw at them as long as the soil is well drained.

If that doesn’t make you want to rip open a seed packet then allow me to tell you how tender they taste when steamed, buttery-smooth just like a summer cabbage but in the depths of winter. Oh, and one more thing, cold temperatures and frost turn the leaf edges pink. Swoon.

My seed packets are out of the tin once more to keep the harvests coming well into winter. I am sowing winter cabbage varieties now and January King is one of them, the other is Piacenza a very finely savoyed type, typical of a winter cabbage.