Red Dragon Cabbage...What I Will Grow Next Year

 

Red Dragon Cabbage, Washed and Ready to Cook

 

I realized as I was selecting garden seeds, I was favoring plants that were red or purple!  Aside from green, these are the two most often-used colors in my colored pencil box. Red Dragon Cabbage is a Napa-style cabbage, heading but not like the standard bowling-ball cabbage.  Planted in early spring, it sprouts easily and grows well, at least until the cabbage worms inevitably arrive.  You can see a little damage on the leaves in the photo above...harvested in the nick of time!  If you do get cabbage "worms" (actually caterpillars of the cabbage white moth), you can wash the leaves after soaking them say, for an hour, in a sink full of salted water (about 2T). And pick out the deceased critters...don't be squemish! Don't let them soak too long, then give them a wash and drain in a colander. Sadly, the pretty electric-purple leaves turn green when cooked. (NOTE: there is another option to dealing with cabbage worms: I feed them to my carnivorous pitcher plants!).