| 90 days from transplants; 125 from sowing. Sweet Surprise is not only the most delicious cabbage I've eaten in a long time, it's also one of the best for storing -- keeping up to an incredible 4 months in a root cellar! And because it's got terrific disease resistance, you can expect big yields from these vigorous plants! Sweet Surprise bears dark green, 10- to 12-inch heads set quite high off the ground, so they aren't subject to pest attack and rot. (It sure makes harvesting easier to have these big heads a few inches closer, too!) The flavor is so sweet that you may find yourself nibbling the wrapper leaves in the garden -- and one of the best ways to prepare this cabbage is simply to steam it and sprinkle with a little vinegar over rice! It's THAT tasty! This hybrid is wonderfully tolerant of thrips and black rot, as well as tip burn and bacterial speck. The plant reaches about 18 inches tall and 20 inches across, thriving in any soil from sand to clay. Easy, prolific, delicious, and long-lasting -- Sweet Surprise Hybrid has it all! Cabbage is a cool-season crop, sown in early spring for early-summer harvest or in mid- to late summer for fall harvest. Where winters are mild, it can be sown nearly year-round, except during the hot summer months. Start indoors or direct-sow, spacing plants 2 feet apart for large heads, 1 to 1 1/2 feet apart for smaller heads. Before planting, prepare the soil well with fertilizer, and add a dose of ammonium nitrate about a month into the growth season. Harvest the heads when they are firm and brightly colored. Plants may form smaller side-heads after the main head is harvested. Pkt is 50 seeds. |
