Jaime:

Take a close look underneath some of the leaves. You may have cabbage worms. They are green and really hard to spot sometimes so look really good. These are the result of eggs that were laid by little white moths that you may have see fluttering around.

If you only spot a couple of worms, you can try hand picking them off. If the problem persist though, you are probably best applying some Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) which you can purchase in powder form and liquid form. I use the liquid form and mail order it but you can probably find the powder form at your local big box store.

You will have to decide if the expense is worth it for just one plant though.

Good luck....

Thanks for the info John..I will give it a good look for worms. And if not then check out the Bt. My son was very excited to be growing the cabbage. We'll have to see.

Thanks!

Because it is important to your son, if you get the little worms off, you can cover the plant with some remay or row cover of some sort. Or you can mix some cheap imitation vanilla flavoring with water and spray the plant with a little hand held spray bottle like a windex bottle, to disguise the smell of the plant so that those little white moths will not lay eggs on it to hatch out to become worms.
Bill P.

I'll bet this is one of those giant cabbage contest growing things, of which we have two. I have a long story about that, with my DD9 bringing them home in early March, and we did all kinds of things to meet the 10 week deadline, planting them in pure compost and watering with Miracle Grow, had the plant up to about 4 feet in dia in the time line, head just starting to form. Carried it into the school, freaked out the secretaries at the desk because I was holding the plant up in front of my face, shaking it from the weight, and they didn't know anything about it, and so on......

Anyway, the contest was not so, and I took it home and plonked them both in the garden. This is in late April, still frost at night. Next day the things were riddled with holes. I couldn't find the worms, and I know what to look for. I've sprayed anyway, the holes are still there and still coming, and I think it might be a genetic issue with this fast growing strain as I've heard the problem from elsewhere.

They do get big. The heads are forming now and are the size of a normal, store bought cabbage, and we have 4 months to go.

If you go with the hand-picking of the worms...also look for little yellow eggs. They're tiny but stick out from the leaf. Those are where the worms come from.

I go out every morning and squish teeny tiny worms and eggs.