Awesome!!
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Not a cabbage, but same species, so itās closely related.
I have a tall brussels sprouts plant that fell over after snow pounded on it for months, and Iām pretty sure itās dead. I broke off a few brussels sprouts in the fall and planted them under a bunch of mulch elsewhere in the garden, though, just to see if itād work to make clones. Seemed like a reasonable backup plan.
Well, the main plant is dead, but one of the sprouts I planted is green and looks happy! I may get flowers and seeds from it this year.
So yeah, this has me wondering if harvesting cabbage heads before they completely rot away in winter is the smart thing to do. If I leave a nice bit of stump to regrow, it may even be advantageous to the plant ā I could cover it in autumn leaves more easily, because the surface would be flatter, so they wouldnāt slide off.
Seems like something I have to test out.
Thank you guys for the heartening idea!
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I tried four different methods.
1- we pulled the cabbages root and all and hung in the cellar. FAIL, all cabbages dried out and roots died as well.
2- we harvested heads and left roots in the ground. Some of the roots died before fall and some of them started growing new leaves. I think it had to do with how deep down the stem we cut. I recommend cutting and leaving a layer of leaves to regrow. Those that had a few leaves made it through winter and are growing.
3- we left a couple full heads in the ground they were late heading up. They made it through winter. The heads rotted but the roots are sending up new shoots.
4- in July we pulled several heads that were ready as we didnāt want them to split. In November the remaining heads had dried up but the roots were still alive so we replanted them in the ground and they are sending up shoots.
We covered all cabbages with a thick layer of leaves from our trees in the yard. We had a long winter with loads of snow, so Iām sure it helped to insulate the roots. I will use the three successful methods again. If we have a cold winter without snow, will the results be the same? Iāll test that too.
We planted 150 cabbages, we harvested most of them. A few died after germination. 15 cabbages died in the root cellar. We ended up with 27 in the ground that survived to grow out this spring. So of the forty two that we tested 27 are ready to start their seed cycle. Iām so happy to watch them develop and see how much seed we can harvest. 
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The information that everyone has provided has made me think that i will direct sow lots of my cabbage seeds in successions from early spring to early summer. The varieties i currently have are as follows:
-Red kalibos from seed savers exchange
-dottenfelder from north circle seeds
-mermaid tale mix from fruition seeds
-januray king from uprising seeds
I will harvest heads as they seem to be maturing, and will try different cut methods to leave the root in the ground. Any cabbage that are super late i will not bother to harvest. Then i will cover with leaves for winter, and collect seeds from any that sprout and flower next year! I am feeling very optimistic based on everyones experimentation from this past season! It would be awesome to get a huge harvest and get seeds from the same plants, and i think it would be a good use of garden space and will probably be a good way to keep the microbe population alive through the winter as well.
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Iāve seen people pull the cabbage up, roots and all. Then you put them into buckets with the roots planted into damp sand. Like a cabbage bouquet. And they were stored in the cellar or clamp that way.
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Iāve heard that as well. Leaving the root in the ground is my preferred choice since it worked. 
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Holly, what varieties of cabbage did you plant, and was there any difference in survival between varieties?
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They were all one variety. Danish ball head. It is my first attempt at saving seeds. Now that I feel more comfortable and confident I will do more.
This year I have a Grex Iām planting.
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Hello Everyone,
Who is getting ready to plant cabbages for overwintering this fall? Any updates? And any updates on this yearās seed crop?
Iām going to be planting around 8 varieties for overwintering in about a monthās time; I will be succession planting so that I have a range of maturities going into the winter, to increase the chances of getting all the varieties through to flowering in the spring.
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I have been following this discussion from the beginning , because I had 15 cabbages , 10 brocoli and 10 kohlrabi wintering for seeds. That was my first intentional attempt at producing cruciferaes seeds. Only two cabbages survived the winter and one now has seed pods that I watch closely. I realize , and this discussion confirms it, that it in not just as easy to produce seeds from bisanual plants than I initially thought because I often had seeds here or there, by chance. !
so this year I am trying again rohlrabi and will try again cabbages .
I like your plan to proceed with succession planting, so as to have different stages of maturity through winter. Will discuss this with the team.
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Thatās the same thing I saw with several of my broccol-ish plants that appeared dead after the -14 F cold snap before Christmas last year. They were a tad delayed in flowering but caught up with the later flowers of the plants that were not frozen down. Now I have two distinct lines of seeds. One from the earlier flowers of the non-freeze killed plants and the second from the later blooms of those plants mixed with the ones that had to recover. Not sure at this point how I want to proceed with that although in may be a moot point since many, many seeds have already dispersed on their own.
I think I might plant just seed from the earlier flowers of the non-frozen plants but also leave a lot of volunteers and call it good. Getting the broccol-ish to a mostly feral state where there are leaves, stalks or flower heads available at most times of the year and I donāt have to do much of anything except pick it has been a back-of-mind goal all along.
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All cabbages surviving winter (whether replanted, stump, or full head) are growing and flowering or will shortly be creating flowers. Some began earlier and others are still catching up. Early bloomers are beginning to set pods.
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Yes! Iād love to have early bloomers, medium bloomers, and late bloomers. I want a mix of all three so that I can get broccoli to eat for a whole lot longer. Iāll favor the earliest bloomers the most because Iām likely to be dying for broccoli as early as possible in the spring, and Iāll favor the latest bloomers quite heavily too, because then I can hopefully have broccoli to eat as late in the winter as possible. If I can have it available in equal and abundant quantities all year round, that would be the ideal. 
There is some variation in when they bloom but in the case I mentioned the much later ones were those that had to totally regrow from the root rather than just resuming growth.
I donāt think Iāll be able to pull off something fresh to eat all year but certainly a bigger portion of it than growing this species in a more traditional way. The flower stalks are ready in late winter or early spring and the harvest goes on for a month or more. At the other end of the season, once a strong enough frost takes out the worms, fresh leaves are harvestable late fall into early winter.
They donāt grow fast enough in mid-winter to harvest much and once the heat and worms arrive in late spring there isnāt much worth eating until the cycle starts over in fall.
It is interesting, especially maybe for people in different climates that as long as you keep harvesting, they keep blooming. I have some that I cut down to the ground that are now basically little bushes of broccol-ish. They arenāt nearly as crisp and tasty now that itās turned hot and dry and they are smothered in the worms but if you didnāt have the worms and if it stayed cooler, it could be a nearly year-round crop.
@hollyhock Interesting to see your photos. Gives me a better idea of the difference in our climates as my plants have nearly quit flowering and a lot of seeds have already matured.
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Iāll keep an eye out to see how my brassicas do in the summer this year. Iām very interested to see how they handle my heat and drought.
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Here they get tough and chewy and donāt taste as good once it gets hot. And the worms, worms, worms, worms. On the plus side the little butterflies that lay the eggs that turn into the worms are wonderful pollinators on anything else that happens to be blooming.
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Thanks for the insight into bloom variation. I can see that is what is happening. Depending on how much work it takes to get leaves coming. Also, my overwintered collards are leafing out. For a long time I thought only one plant survived, but slowly leaves are breaking out. There are now five plants that I can expect seeds from. No blossoms yet on them.
It is interesting to see pictures. Iāve always felt our growing season is so far behind everyone that there wasnāt much interest as many are already harvesting while some of our seeds are just beginning to germinate. 
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Oh, okay! So cabbage moths are actually beneficial to non-brassicas? I see them fluttering around randomly all the time, and I wondered if they would be pests to my squashes, for instance.
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Thanks for the replies, everyone! @hollyhock It is good to see overwintered cabbages flowering in a very harsh climate; it gives me more confidence that Iāll be able to make this work.
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Just wondering, since I live in Florida, can I leave the cabbage growing until it flowers? Or do I need to chop it down to the stump? Will it flower?