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Fennel is a spicy herbaceous plant that looks very similar to dill. There are many types, but the most famous are common fennel (or pharmacy dill) and vegetable (or Italian). The plant, rich in vitamins, microelements and essential oils, is widely used in cooking, winemaking, medicine, and perfumery. It is from its seeds that dill water, known to everyone, is made from infancy.
How to prepare seeds
The cultivation of dill is usually organized for its spicy greens, whose aroma resembles the smells of dill, mint and anise. Some lovers also harvest roots for cooking seasonings. Vegetable fennel is cultivated for its fleshy stalk, reminiscent of kohlrabi cabbage – this thickening is formed at the base of the stem, the leaf petioles also thicken. This fleshy part is sometimes incorrectly called an onion or a fruit, it is eaten raw, stewed, boiled, baked, it has a delicate taste, strong aroma and great health benefits.
Most essential oils contain the seeds of this perennial plant, but they can be grown only in the second year, and in summer cottages, fennel is most often cultivated as an annual, which allows you to collect greens, roots and a thick stem. It blooms in the second year of life. Growing a vegetable species for the sake of a thickened stem only in the south is done by sowing seeds in open ground, because it can be sown early, as early as March. Fennel loves a short daylight hours, it grows most intensively before the beginning of summer and then, when summer rolls towards sunset. If you start growing from seeds at the end of May, then the plant will bypass the period of growing a thick stem – you will have to be content with only greens. Therefore, vegetable fennel is easier to grow through seedlings.
Pharmaceutical dill can be sown directly on the garden. Its seeds are small, elongated, no more than 10 mm long and 4 mm wide. They are light – 1000 seeds weigh about 7 g, taste sweet, ripen in autumn when the umbrella turns brown, like dill. They remain viable for 2-3 years. Special preparation before sowing from seeds is not required.
Video “How to grow fennel”
Informative video for gardeners.
Planting seeds in the ground
Fennel cultivation takes place on nutrient neutral soils, sandy or loamy. Before sowing, the soil is fertilized with compost or humus with ash and lime. If the soil is heavy, more prepared sawdust is added to it – before that they must be soaked with water, add slaked lime. A bucket of humus and 1-400 g of ash are buried per 500 square meter of area. The site is dug up well to the depth of the shovel bayonet.
A place for pharmacy dill is chosen sunny, protected from large drafts. It has very long roots that aggressively seek water when there is a lack of moisture, even able to capture the area intended for neighbors, so the growth of other vegetables next to fennel may be inhibited. Only cabbage and cucumbers grow well next to it, subject to sufficient watering, they also need the same amount of moisture.
Seeds are sown on the prepared site from April to June, the second time this can be done from August to September. They are sown in rows, deepened by 2 cm, covered with earth and watered from a watering can. Between rows, you need to leave up to 30 cm. Crops are covered with a film to create a greenhouse effect. After 10 days, the first shoots should appear.
After seedlings have emerged from all the seeds, they need to be thinned out. Leave at least 15 cm between plants. After thinning, the sprouts are watered with a solution of mullein or chicken manure (diluted in a ratio of 1 to 10).
fennel care
Growing fennel is not difficult: it needs regular watering, loose soil that allows air to reach the roots, no weeds, and top dressing. Therefore, it is very important to monitor the humidity, if the weather is dry and hot, then watering is done 3-4 times a week. Fennel leaves are as finely cut as those of dill, with a lack of moisture they become stiff.
The bed needs to be weeded, the earth loosened. Part of the problem of moisture and weeds can be solved with the help of mulching. Often, fennel is planted in flower beds – tall (more than a meter), openwork with graceful green leaves, and in the second year also with delicate yellow umbrellas of flowers, the plant looks very impressive. You can plant it in the center or in the background of the flower beds, and the ground is often mulched on flower beds – this is very popular with the plant itself and frees the owners from unnecessary work. There are varieties that look more decorative due to the different color of the leaves – bronze-purple or copper, they also change color over time.
The most comfortable temperature for intensive growth is from + 16 to + 18 degrees. If the temperature rises above +24 or falls below +7, the plant will slow down its growth.
You can feed with infusion of mullein or herbal mash. Weeds and plant debris must be removed from row spacing. Vegetable fennel needs to be spudded several times over the summer, this stimulates the formation of a head. The earth usually soils the white fleshy head, to avoid this, enterprising vegetable growers cover the thickened stem with plastic tape cut from a 2-liter bottle. The base of the stem is wrapped in plastic, slightly deepening it into the ground, and then the ground is wrapped around it.
A flowering plant, and it blooms all summer, attracts beneficial insects that contribute to the pollination of vegetable and horticultural crops. And the spicy smell of greenery drives away aphids and other parasites, so such a neighborhood can even be beneficial to other plants. But tomatoes and potatoes clearly grow worse and give a poor harvest next to fennel.
Harvesting
Greens are harvested all summer, best before flowering. If you cut the flower stalks, this period can be extended for the second year and beyond. It is used fresh and prepared for the future. Drying and freezing prevail among harvesting methods. For drying, the greens are cut and laid out in a thin layer in a shaded, ventilated place, dried, periodically stirring the material. Store dried material in glass jars for up to 2 years. Both whole branches and chopped greens are frozen, stored in the freezer for up to a year.
Roots can also be harvested. They are dug up, stored in the cellar, like root crops. And if they are needed for the preparation of dry seasonings, then the roots are immediately washed, cleaned, finely cut, dried, and then crushed to the desired size.
Vegetable fennel is harvested when the sprouts have grown to about 10 cm. They can be used immediately – eaten raw or cooked from them in some dishes. And if you need to put it in storage, then it is better to dig up with the root. The stems are cut at a height of 10 cm, but the roots are left, stored in the cellar, placed in a box with wet sand.
Fennel blooms in July if planted in early spring, and the fruits ripen no earlier than September. Plants are left until autumn for the sake of seeds, in September they become greenish-brown or even grayish-brown. Seeds contain a lot of useful substances, they contain the largest amount of essential oils that are used in medicine, cooking, perfumery. Since the plant is most often cultivated as an annual, it is worth growing your own seeds for next year’s sowing. They are harvested in the same way as dill seeds. Not everywhere the plant can overwinter in the garden, most often it is dug up with a clod of earth, placed in the cellar, cutting off the shoots. There it will safely overwinter, and in the spring it is returned to the garden for further growth.
Video “About cultivation and useful properties”
Demonstrative video describing the cultivation process and the beneficial properties of fennel.