A cabbage (Brassica oleracea Capitata Group) is an comestible plant of the Personal Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae). These are herbaceous, biennial, and the dicotyledonous flowering plant with leaves forming the characteristic compact head. Cabbage, broccoli (Italica Group), cauliflower (Botrytis Group), collard greens (Acephala Group), kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), Chinese kale or Chinese broccoli (Alboglabra Group), broccolini (Italica x Alboglabra Class action), & broccoflower (Italica x Botrytis Group) come 100% cultivars of the same plant metal money, Brassica oleracea.

A cabbage head was bred into a mintage from either a leafy uncivilized plant, discovered in the Mediterranean region around Century AD. A English title derives from either a French caboche (head). Varieties include Red cabbage & Savoy cabbage. Chinese cabbage, while resembling cabbage, is an independent development from either the different Brassica species.

Cabbages come unremarkably utilized two cooked & as a salad vegetable. It keep swell & were so the most common wintertime vegetable prior to refrigeration and long-distance transport of garden truck. Sauerkraut is a fermented cabbage often utilized as a condiment or side dish.

A caterpillars of some butterflies in the family Pieridae (the "whites") feed upon brassicas & may be good parasites.

A fluids of the red cabbage may be utilized as a pH indicator[http://chemistry.about.com/library/weekly/aa012803a.htm].

An additional most common utilize of cabbage is in the staple of the Cabbage Soup Diet, a fad diet which involves feeding many bowls of reportedly suby the bland, tasteless cabbage soup per day.

Culture

Broadly speaking, 2 groups of varieties come available: early & late. A early varieties mature around astir L years. It create little heads which don't keep swell & come designed for consumption spell freshly. the late cabbage matures inside astir Lxxx years, & produces a big head.

Cabbage may be began inside or even sowed directly. Prefer 100% brassicae, cabbage occurs as cool year crop, & then early and late plantings clean better than people maturing in the heat of the summertime.

Control of insect parasites is significant, particularly around commercial production in which appearance is crucial. Sevin and malathion are both enrolled for utilise in cabbage.

Krautman is the usual kind for commercial production of sauerkraut.

Several varieties of Brassica oleracea, including kale, Brussels sprouts, Savoy, and Chinese kale