I grew candy onions from seed last year. I started the seeds in January, but I had no place to put the plants out early. When the plants are small it seems that they need to have a sheltered place to grow and get a little size on them before they are planted in the garden. They produced but were about half the size they should have been. I planted 1015Y this past fall on Oct.17 in the north garden. They sprouted and grew fine until the cold weather, now I can t see any of them. I don't think the got enough size on them to survive. My other onions and garlic look very bad also. I want to try to grow more onions from seed, but I have to get my body in better shape to garden like I want to.

My cabbage does fine from seed or purchased plants. My biggest complaint is the price of the plants. The plants are about $.50 each, the seeds are very cheap. Orient Express cabbage is the cabbage I have the most problems with, it seems to get some kind of rot disease.

I will show you some of the onions I started from seed, these are not candy, but I had the same luck with the candy. The timing is really tough here starting onions from seed. These were planted 2-6 last year at about 2 or 3 weeks of age. We had a lot of cold weather later and even snow in April. I had heavy losses and small size on my seed starts..

Larry

Some years I buy cabbage transplants but most years I grow them from seed. There's really no rhyme or reason to why I do it one way one year and another way the next year....I guess it depends on my mood.

The advantage of growing your own is that you have total control over the choice of variety, and the size the plants will be at transplant time. One issue with purchasing transplants is that you have no idea how old they are or whether they already are rootbound when you buy them. In my experience, cabbage plants often are rootbound when purchased. I think mostly that's just because they're grown in such small containers. I try to avoid buying them in 6-packs unless I catch them the first week they show up in the store. If you can catch them that new and fresh, they may not yet be rootbound. Often if they are in 4-packs, they're not rootbound if you buy them the first week they hit the shelves, but the deeper in the season it gets, the more likely it is that the plants are a little older and their roots are cramped up in too small of a container. Transplants that were rootbound often sit and sulk for a while after they are transplanted, so you can lose a couple of weeks of growing time that way.

I don't know if I ever have had a specific cabbage variety do poorly. They're ridiculously simple to grow, and pretty much grow all by themselves without any real care as long as you're not having issues with cabbage worms. I generally grow sage near cabbage, and while it doesn't keep them completely free of cabbage worms, it seems to keep their numbers down.

I like smaller varieties, like Caraflex, Gonzales or Ruby Express, for fresh eating, but also will grow some of the larger varieties, like Late Dutch Flat, if I want large amounts of cabbage all at once so I can make sauerkraut. I also like Ruby Perfection, which is more of a mid- or late-season variety for me.

Since I'm a long way from NE OK, I cannot tell you what varieties grow well there, but in SC OK, they all grow well. I think that cabbage is as close to a foolproof veggie as there is (along with radishes), and no variety is particularly immune to the pests that plague them. I rarely have flea beetles here, but some years the cabbage worms are awful.

Thank you Dawn and Larry. Onions may take too long and try my patience. Larry keep trying to modify things so you can garden like the pole beans so you don't have to bend so much. Gardening is good for you. I hope I can find the candy onion plants again this year. I didn't know that you had to worry about root bound cabbage plants. I have planted them before and had them sit there not making progress. It is good to know that most varieties are good enough. I am sure I would have worms because worms ate up my kale last year. I will have to figure out a cover since I don't like to spray especially leafy things with lots of surface area.

Helen

Eager to do something I germinated onion seeds in mid September in a small flat. To try growing my own bunching onions. I really didn't have enough to do anything with, but to try my hand. Eventually, I moved them into my cold frame.

Now I understand why gardeners buy bunches in late winter. It really takes a while for them to grow. What's left of them is only now about pencil size.

I have a serious army worm and grub problem. With Dawn's suggestion, I'll be using Sluggo Plus to help. Thanks for asking the question about cabbage transplants.

Does anyone know which variety of cabbage is preferable for cooking cabbage rolls? I've never considered this. I've always bought cabbage from the produce section and twice as many heads as I need lest they don't work well.

Now that I have control .... kinda nice.