Growing Fennel

Growing fennel (foeniculum Vulgare) will make a beautiful addition to your perennial herb garden border.

You can even clip a few stems and mix them with nasturtiums and calendula to create an attractive and edible centerpiece for the table.

Planting fennel can also help to repel pesky slugs and snails in your garden.

Fennel is a highly aromatic and flavorful herb with many culinary and medicinal uses, and is one of the primary ingrediants of absinthe.

Florence fennel or finocchio is a selection with a swollen, bulb-like stem base that is used as a vegetable.

Description

Fennel is a perennial gown as an annual, except in southernmost areas 2 to 5 feet tall in zones 6 to 9.

Flowers: The 6 inch wide umbels of tiny yellow flowers appear in midsummer.

Leaves: Fennel's feathery, blue-green leaves look remarkably like those of dill.

Flavor and fragrance: Fennel leaves and seeds have a mild licorice or anise flavor and fragrance.

How To Grow

When to plant: Sow the seeds directly in the garden a week or two before your last spring frost. If you're south of zone 5, you can also plant fennel seeds in the fall.

Where to plant: Fennel prefers full sun but tolerates partial shade, particularly in southern areas.

Soil and fertility: Fennel requires moderately fertile, well-drained, moist soil, but will not tolerate overwatering.

Plant spacing: Space the plants 6 inches apart.

Pests: Largely pest-free

Diseases: Prone to root rot in soggy soils.

Harvesting

When to harvest: Harvest the leaves before the plant blooms, gathering them in the morning when the dew is dry. Collect the ripe seeds on a dry day.

How to harvest: Snip individual leaves as needed. To harvest the leaves for drying, cut the whole stems. Enclose ripening seed heads in paper bags to prevent the seeds fom shattering onto the ground, and remove the whole seed head.

Drying: Hang stems of leaves upside down to air dry. Hang flower stems upside down with the seed head enclosed.

Freezing: Freeze the leaves in ice cubs.

Uses

Cooking: Snip fresh leaves or mince the stems into salads, fish, pork, eggs, cheese, beans, rice, and anything in the cabbage family. Add some seeds to Asian dishes, sauerkraut, fish, lentils, breads, butter, and cheese spreads.

Fennel's flavor fades quickly when heated; add it to your recipes just before serving.

Oils: Combine with olive oil for a flavored cooking oil.

Medicinal: A fennel infusion aids digestion and reduces colic in infants and flatulence in children and adults.

Cosmetic: You can use fennel seeds to exfoliate dead skin and refine pores.

Arrangements: Use fresh fennel flowers in floral arrangements.

Before growing fennel, make sure you're not one of the few people who are allergic to this beautiful herb.