It's not just the name of this spring green variety of cabbage which proves a mouthful - once you sample the taste of the mature Offenham Myatts Compacta cabbage leaves, you'll be eating mouthfuls of them!

Myatt's Offenham Compacta is widely considered the leading cabbage variety for spring greens.
With very good resistance to early bolting this variety is ideal for summer sowing.
Summer sowings of Myatt’s Offenham Compacta will produce dark green leaves in November and hearted spring greens. Finally, if you can bear to keep your mitts of them, it produces great flavoured, pointed spring cabbages with compact pointed hearts during April and May.

Myatt's Offenham Compacta has been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit. It was reconfirmed in 2010.

This variety is also available as Organic Seed.

Prepare the site:
All brassica crops grow best in partial-shade, in firm, fertile, free-draining soil. Start digging over your soil as soon as you can brave the elements. Remove any stones you find and work in plenty of well-rotted manure or compost. Tread on the soil to remove air pockets and to make the surface firm. Brassicas will fail if the soil is too acidic; add lime to the soil if necessary, aiming for a pH of 6.5-7.5.

Sowing: Sow in spring, from March to May
Nearly all brassicas should be planted in a seedbed or in modules under glass and then transferred. Seeds should be sown thinly, as this reduces the amount of future thinning necessary and potential risk from pests.
Sow seeds 12mm (½in) deep and space 15 to 20cm (6-8in) between rows.
Seeds germinate between 10 and 25°C (50 to 77°F). Once the seeds have germinated, thin the seedlings to 7.5cm (3in) between each plant. After germination, seedlings will often be ‘leggy’, so plant them as deep as possible to really anchor them into the soil.
Cabbage seedlings are ready for transplanting when they are between 6 and 8cm high (2½ to 3in). Water the day before moving, and keep well-watered until established. Plant firmly, close together for small heads and wider apart for larger cabbages, around 30 to 45cm (12 to 18in) apart.

Growing:
Clear away any yellow leaves. Feed the plants as they near maturity with a foliar feed.

Harvest: Harvest 20 to 26 weeks from sowing.
Test the head's solidity by squeezing it. Cut the head from the base of the plant. Heads keep for several weeks in the fridge. If you want to experiment, you can leave the stump of the harvested plant in the garden. Sometimes they develop loose little heads below the cut that are fun to serve as mini cabbages.

Tips:
Brassicas are affected by a wide range of pests and diseases, especially the fungal disease, club root. The roots become stubby and swollen and can develop wet rot, while leaves become yellow and wilt, causing severe stunting of growth. Remove any infected plants from the ground and destroy. Make sure the soil is adequately limed and well drained. Rotate your crops annually to avoid disease. Don't grow brassicas on the same plot more often than one year in three, as moving the crop helps avoid the build up of soil pests and diseases

The Myatt Family:
Joseph Myatt first began market gardening at Mannor Farm, Kent in 1818. He farmed for many years at Deptford and Camberwell, where he achieved great fame as a raiser of strawberry varieties and as the first man to grow rhubarb on a commercial scale. Before this time, rhubarb was mainly an ornamental plant or a food curiosity.
In 1852 his son, James Myatt, moved the business to Camberwell, South London before urban encroachment forced the family to move again in 1876 to Offenham, Gloucestershire. The Myatts were renowned for their Rhubarb, Strawberries and Cabbage, winning trophies that date back to 1868.
James’s son, Mr. Charles Myatt, of Harvington, three miles from Evesham, still follows in his father's footsteps, and annually grows and sells seed of this unsurpassed market gardener's spring cabbage.

Myatt’s Fields Park - A hidden gem!
Myatt’s Fields Park is a unique example of a surviving small-scale Victorian urban park. Myatt was a tenant of the land known as Myatt’s Fields between 1818 and 1869.
Originally formed from 14½ acres belonging to the Minet estate on the Camberwell/Lambeth borders, the Park was designed from the start to combine space for recreation with ornamental horticulture. It was opened to the public on May 28 1889 and was acquired by the London Borough of Lambeth in 1970.
London County Council Minutes state that the name “Myatt’s Fields” commemorated Joseph Myatt, “a former tenant famed for his rhubarb and strawberries and after whom Myatt’s Offenham compacta cabbage was named”.
The park is surrounded by pleasant townhouses and features a picnic area, children’s play area, bandstand, tennis courts and distinctive flower beds. The park keepers seem to go to great lengths to look after it and obviously take great pride in their work.

James Myatt.
In 1852 James Myatt leased from Jonathan Thorpe about 70 acres of land at Offenham, in the vale of Evesham, where he immediately commenced large-scale growing of fruit and vegetables. Strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus seem to have been especially important.
The Vale of Evesham is the name used for the flat and fertile area of southern Worcestershire, England, along the valley of the River Avon, centred on the town of Evesham.
It is often written that James was born at Loughborough; it is generally assumed that the Loughborough in question was that in Leicestershire. This, however, is most certainly false. Part of the Myatt land at Camberwell has been preserved as a small public park, known as Myatt's Fields, and within a stone's throw of this is another Loughborough. It is, in fact, a small area, probably originally of hamlet size, lying between Camberwell and Brixton. This is almost certainly the Loughborough of Myatt's birth.

Myatt was 48 years of age when he moved to Offenham and was already a very successful gardener used to large-scale operations. Camberwell was being swallowed up by expanding London and Myatt was obviously looking for an alternative site. Jonathan Thorpe was a director of the railway company operating the newly-opened line. He probably saw the potentialities of the railway system in conveying fruit and vegetables to London from distant production areas. The needs of the two men were complementary.

James Myatt was also prominent, together with Joseph Masters in early attempts at pest control. They worked in conjunction with Miss Ormerod, entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the foremost pioneer in the study of insect pests of agriculture. Masters and Myatt seem to have tried out grease-banding for the control of winter moth on fruit trees as early as 1864.

James raised many of today’s standard varieties, many of their names commemorate the family’s founding horticulturalist: ‘Myatt's Early Prolific’ potato, ‘Myatt's Victoria’ Rhubarb. Cabbages such as ‘Wintergreen Offenham’ and ‘Myatts Offenham Compacta’.
James Myatt's impact on horticulture was considerable. He brought new ideas and improved strains but above all he helped to bring a new status to the gardener.