Fothergill's RHS Cabbage Red Rookie F1 Seeds

Details:

• Botanical Name: Brassica oleracea var. capitata 'Rookie F1', an elite, highly uniform F1 hybrid selection within the cabbage family.
• Plant Class: Hardy Annual, possessing excellent hybrid vigour for dependable establishment, strong root development, and uniform growth.
• Dense Round Heads: Produces tightly packed, solid globe heads with a beautiful, deep red colouration throughout, ensuring a high-quality textured leaf structure.
• Impressive Yield Potential: Capable of producing substantial maincrop cabbages that can exceed 3.5kg in weight, making it a highly productive option for maximizing food output from your plot.
• Flexible Baby Head Harvesting: A great choice if your growing space is limited, as the plants can be closely spaced and harvested early to provide tender, sweet baby cabbages.
• Advanced Bolt Resistance: Bred to be exceptionally slow to bolt, allowing the mature heads to stand firmly in the garden over a long period without splitting or running to seed prematurely.
• Gourmet Culinary Use: Packed with a rich, sweet, and mild flavour, making it a versatile kitchen essential that retains its vibrant colour beautifully when braised with apples, pickled in jars, or shredded raw into crunchy winter slaws.

Care Instructions:

• Sowing Position: For a reliable autumn and winter crop, sow seeds thinly indoors in modules from March to April, or sow directly outdoors into a finely raked, weed-free seedbed from April to June. Sow seeds at a depth of 1.5cm.
• Planting Out and Spacing: Transplant young seedlings to their final outdoor positions from May to July once they have developed 4 to 5 true leaves. Space plants 45cm apart for large maincrop heads, or reduce to 30cm apart if you prefer to harvest smaller baby cabbages.
• Soil Preference: Thoroughly firm the soil around the base of each plant after transplanting, as cabbages thrive best in a firm, fertile, and well-drained ground that prevents the heavy heads from rocking in the wind.
• Moisture and Protection: Keep the bed consistently moist during dry summer spells to encourage steady leaf development. Protect the developing crop from birds and cabbage white butterflies by covering the plot with a fine insect netting immediately after planting out.