Cabbage
Col / Repollo · Chou
🧩 Role in the garden
- Family
- Brassicaceae
- Height
- medium (40–100 cm)
- Shape
- compact
- Roots
- shallow
- Sun
- full sun
- Season
- cool season
- Grows in
- ❄ winter beds (cool season)
- Feeds
- heavy feeder
Jobs in the bed
A plain neighbour: no special job.
Rotation
Do not return Brassicaceae to the same spot for 3–4 years. Same family:
✓ Good neighbours
- ✓ Bean (bush/pole)
- ✓ Lettuce
- ✓ Onion
- ✓ Garlic
- ✓ Potato
- ✓ Beetroot
- ✓ Spinach
- ✓ Leek
- ✓ Broad bean / fava
- ✓ Swiss chard
- ✓ Kohlrabi
☀❄ Grows in a different season: not at the same time in the same bed.
✗ Keep apart
None listed.
⚠ Use caution
- ⚠ Tomatotomato: in trials it cut diamondback moth on cabbage, but shaded it (fewer, smaller heads)
✿ Helpful flowers & herbs
- ✿ Calendula (pot marigold)Magnet for pollinators and aphid-eating hoverflies & parasitic wasps; works as an aphid trap Can attract slugs
- ✿ NasturtiumTrap crop — draws aphids & caterpillars off the crop; trailing ground cover; edible Plant slightly away from the main crop so pests move to it, not onto the crop
- ✿ Sweet alyssumTiny flowers attract hoverflies whose larvae devour aphids; ground cover
- ✿ LavenderStrong pollinator magnet (bees, butterflies); like other flowering aromatic herbs, it supports the natural enemies of cabbage pests Wants dry, sunny spots — don't overwater
- ✿ MintWhen flowering, feeds hoverflies & parasitic wasps Very invasive → grow in a pot
- ✿ DillAttracts ladybugs, parasitic wasps & hoverflies (aphid predators) A minor host of the carrot fly: keep it away from carrots
- ✿ ChamomileAttracts hoverflies & parasitic wasps
- ✿ SageFlowers feed bees and beneficial insects Woody perennial: give it a permanent, well-drained spot
- ✿ ThymeLow ground cover; flowers feed bees & beneficial insects
- ✿ RosemaryEarly flowers feed bees & beneficial insects; evergreen, drought-tolerant Woody perennial that hates wet roots: give it a permanent, well-drained spot
- ✿ ChivesSlim, shallow roots fit between other crops; flowers attract bees Perennial clump: put it where it can stay for years
- ✿ Coriander / cilantroUmbel flowers attract ladybugs, hoverflies, lacewings & wasps that prey on aphids & potato beetle Bolts in heat (fine — the flowers help)