Eating and preserving cabbage

Cabbage and poppies, July 2020

 I have two kinds of cabbage in my garden this summer:  a pointed red one and a ball-headed green one.  Both are mostly ready to harvest now, amounting to a dozen or so medium-sized heads.  

The reds have been the first for the chop;  I've been blanching and dehydrating the tougher green-purple outer leaves and making sauerkraut with the tender red inner leaves.  Those inner leaves have also been made into coleslaw and the outer have been cooked for several dinners too.  It's a great tasting cabbage and has not been too badly affected by caterpillars and slugs this summer (though the ducks may have helped on that score as they eat both).  I don't remember the variety though!  I just remember it's an F1, which I don't normally buy--but it was the only red cabbage in the £1 sale.

It will be on to the green cabbages next, again an F1 of unknown variety.  They have been a little more nibbled than the reds--I think the butterflies prefer the green brassica leaves to the red ones for laying eggs, or at least it seems so in my garden.  These green cabbage leaves are also more tender than the red variety I have.  Still, I will be dehydrating and hope to have a few big jars of sauerkraut by the end of the harvest.

I really need to get a packet of spring cabbage seeds;  for several years I've grown Pixie variety over winter and it has always withstood frost and chicken attacks to form good heads in spring/early summer.  I didn't get new seed last year and missed out on them this spring.  I better get it on the to-do list.