According to almanac tradition, cabbage is a leaf crop, and leaf crops go in during the first quarter of the Moon, between new moon and first quarter, on days when the Moon is in a sign the convention labels fruitful or semi-fruitful. No effect of the Moon on cabbage has been proven. The Traditional Days for 2027 fall in March, April, July and August, and the table in the second section lists each one with its Moon sign.
What the tradition says about planting cabbage
The almanac rule
Almanacs file cabbage under “leaf” crops, a group that also holds lettuce, spinach, broccoli and celery. The logic is the part you harvest: leafy crops, and crops whose seed sits outside the fruit, are assigned to the first quarter. The Moon’s phase cycle lasts 29.53 days, so that first-quarter stretch comes around once per cycle. Gardeners who plant by the Moon aim cabbage at that stretch and leave other crop types for the other quarters.
| Crop type | Quarter in the almanac rule | Crops the almanac lists |
|---|---|---|
| Leaf (cabbage is here) | First quarter, new moon to first quarter | Lettuce, spinach, cabbage, broccoli, celery |
| Fruit (seed inside the fruit) | Second quarter, first quarter to full moon | Tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, corn |
| Root | Third quarter, full moon to last quarter | Potatoes, carrots, garlic, onions, beets |
A fourth quarter, from last quarter to new moon, is set aside for rest in this tradition: weeding, pruning, turning the soil and composting. Nothing is planted.
Many almanacs add a second filter, the Moon’s sign. This convention labels Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces fruitful, Taurus, Libra and Capricorn semi-fruitful, and Aries, Gemini, Leo, Virgo, Sagittarius and Aquarius barren. The Moon circles the stars once every 27.32 days, which is why it changes sign during a run of days and why the phase and the sign do not line up the same way from one month to the next. For leaf crops, the traditional days are the first-quarter days that also fall under a fruitful or semi-fruitful sign.
What is not proven
No effect of the Moon’s phase or sign on cabbage germination or yield is established. The astronomy points the other way. At its strongest, the Moon’s tidal pull at the Earth’s surface is about 1.1 millionths of a meter per second squared, roughly one ten-millionth of gravity. That is far too small to move anything as small as a seed or a root (see the NASA Moon Fact Sheet for the constants behind that figure). Treat the rule as a custom with a long history. If you want the background on the practice as a whole, start with planting by the moon.
Traditional cabbage planting days, 2026 and 2027
Each row below pairs the first-quarter rule with a Moon sign the convention labels fruitful or semi-fruitful. Days are read at noon Eastern time (ET).
| Month | Traditional days and Moon sign | Convention’s label for the sign |
|---|---|---|
| March 2027 | March 8 (Moon in Pisces), March 11-13 (Moon in Taurus) | Pisces fruitful, Taurus semi-fruitful |
| April 2027 | April 8-9 (Moon in Taurus), April 12-13 (Moon in Cancer) | Taurus semi-fruitful, Cancer fruitful |
| July 2027 | July 4 (Moon in Cancer), July 9-10 (Moon in Libra) | Cancer fruitful, Libra semi-fruitful |
| August 2027 | August 6-8 (Moon in Libra/Scorpio) | Libra semi-fruitful, Scorpio fruitful |
The months shown are those when gardeners in much of the country plant cabbage. Your state may start earlier or later, so only the rows that fall inside your state’s own window count. Days are read at noon ET and the Moon changes sign during the day, so treat the first and last day of a run as soft edges.
Reading the table
Two things stand out. Most months hold two separate windows, and they carry different signs, because the Moon moves on to a new sign while the first-quarter rule is still in force. In August 2027 the run of August 6-8 is listed as Libra/Scorpio, meaning the Moon changes sign somewhere inside it. A gardener who wants a Scorpio day, labeled fruitful in this convention, would lean toward the later end of that run. One who accepts either label can use the whole run.
Single-day entries, such as March 8 and July 4, are as legitimate as the three-day runs. They are shorter because the sign and the quarter overlap for less time. If one of those days does not suit your schedule, the tradition offers the other window in the same month rather than a day outside the rule.
The times are Eastern. Readers in other time zones may see a sign change land at a different clock hour on their own wall clock, which is one more reason to treat the edges of each run loosely.
Check your state first: when to plant cabbage where you live
The order of decisions
Start with your state’s planting calendar for cabbage, and bring in the Moon only afterward, if you want it. Frost dates and soil temperature decide whether cabbage can go into the ground in your location. The Moon, if you follow it, only chooses among the days your state calendar already allows. It never overrides that calendar.
Our page on when to plant cabbage where you live owns the practical side: planting windows, soil temperature and frost timing for your area. We keep those figures there, and not on this page, so they stay in one place and stay consistent. If you want to see how your state compares with its neighbors, the state guides collect the planting calendars region by region.
Putting the two together
Once you have your window, the steps are short:
- Find your state’s cabbage window on the linked pages.
- Look at the rows of the table above that fall inside it.
- Pick a traditional day from those rows that fits your own schedule.
If your state’s window sits outside the months in the table, the table has no row for you, and the state calendar is all you need. If it overlaps only part of a month, use only the traditional days inside the overlap. A traditional day that lands outside your window is simply not a planting day for you.
That order protects you from the one mistake this custom invites, which is following a Moon date into soil that is not ready. Almanacs can tell you which days of the cycle they prefer. They cannot know what your yard looks like in March.
A fair way to try it
If you are curious whether the tradition shows up in your own garden, a split planting is the only way a home gardener can judge it for a single plot.
- Choose a day when your state calendar allows cabbage and a traditional day from the table falls inside that stretch.
- Plant half of your cabbage on the traditional day and the other half on an ordinary day inside the same week. Use the same seed, the same bed conditions and the same care for both halves.
- Label both halves clearly, with the planting date and the word “tradition” or “control” on each marker.
- Write down when seedlings emerge and when you harvest, and keep the notes for later seasons.
One season will not settle anything. Weather, pests and small differences in the soil vary from bed to bed, and a gap between the two halves could come from any of them. Several seasons of notes, kept the same way, would tell you more, though even then a home plot is a very small sample. What the split does give you is your own record instead of a borrowed claim, which is a fair way to treat an old custom.
Questions about planting cabbage by the moon
Does the tradition say to plant cabbage in a waxing or a waning moon?
The almanac rule puts cabbage in the first quarter, which belongs to the waxing Moon. Root crops fall in the third quarter, after the full moon, and the fourth quarter is kept for rest. For more on that half of the cycle, see planting in a waxing moon.
What if a traditional day falls during a frost?
Skip it. The tradition does not ask anyone to plant on one particular day at any cost, and gardeners who plant by the Moon pick another day inside the same window or wait for the next one. Whether the ground is ready is a question for your state calendar, and the pages linked above cover it.
Do I need to follow the Moon sign as well as the phase?
It depends on which almanac you follow. Some use the phase alone. Others add the sign, as the table above does. Biodynamic calendars built on Maria Thun’s work use a different system, in which leaf days are Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. Those three signs match the fruitful ones in this convention. Taurus and Libra, the semi-fruitful signs in the table, are root and flower days in the biodynamic scheme, so a calendar of that kind would not list those rows for a leaf crop.