All About Fennel

Foeniculum vulgare
Family: Umbelliferae (carrots, celery, parsley)
Height: up to 6 ft.
Zone 5

Folk Names: Samar, Marathron, Sheeh
Gender: Masculine
Planet: Mercury
Element: Fire
Deities: Promethus, Dionysus
Uses: Protection, Healing, Purification

A tall, hardy perennial with only one species. Native to Europe and the Mediterranean where it enjoyed great fame as not just a flavoring, but also as versatile medicine. Fennel grows to 6 feet tall, with umbels of yellow flowers. It's fine feathery, needle-like leaves give it a similar appearance to dill, which is in the same family.

There's three varieties of fennel. Common, or wild, fennel is described above. Var. rubrum or bronze fennel, has beautiful purple-bronze foliage. Var. dulce, also known as sweet fennel, finocchio, or Florence fennel, is a cool weather annual, grown for its large flavorful bulb and thick celery-like stalks.

Fennel grows well is full sun, with ordinary soil and watering. In my experience, it's just about the easiest thing to grow. Since it's a perennial it comes back every year all on its own, and seems to thrive on just the nurturing nature gives it. The plants themselves only live a few years, but it self-seeds so readily that you'll never notice.

The pungent herb has a long history as a digestive aid and appetite suppressant. The seventeenth-century British herbalist Nicholas Culpepper recommended a tonic made from fennel stems, bulb, seeds, and flowers was recommended for weight loss. Such a tea, made from pouring a pint of boiling water over a teaspoon of bruised seeds, is also given to reduce colic in babies. In the medieval times people carried little satchels of fennel seeds to nibble at mass during fasting days. Others hung bunches of fennel from their cottage doorstep to ward off evil spirits and dark magic. One folk remedy is to place a piece of fennel stalk in your left shoe to ward off tick bites.

 
Recently I harvested fennel from my own garden and had the wherewithall to take some pictures to share. The best time to harvest is late August, when the head heads are mature and dry.

Here are my huge beautiful fennel bushes. I don't plant them, and I expend no effort tending to them. I let mother nature do her thang and she provides! Kids love to munch on it, and it attracts lots of helpful animal friends.

Such as this eastern black swallowtail caterpillar, which loves plants in the Umbelliferae family, such as our friend fennel. I also saw four varieties of spider, and two varieties of solitary wasp while harvesting fennel. I didn't get pictures of them because they were too small or fast for my camera.

To harvest fennel seeds you need pair of scissors to cut the seed heads and a bag to collect them in.

 

Here is a close-up of the fennel leaves, demonstrating its similarity to dill. Also pictured: a spider nest! 

 

 

 The seed heads are ready to harvest when the seeds are mature and the head is brittle and dried brown.

 

 

The seeds are mature when they're dried hard and have a strong licorice flavor.

 

Simply snip off the seed head and collect it in a bag. Be careful, because rough handling or a strong breeze can shatter the seed head and scatter those precious seeds.

 

Fifteen minutes later my bag is full. There's thousands of seeds in here, enough for a whole year of licorice candy and digestive tonics.

 

 To finish the seeds need to sit in a warm area to finish drying for a few weeks. Then, you can insert your hand and crumple up the seed heads to encourage them to release their seeds.

 The chaff and seeds can be separated by winnowing between two containers in a gentle breeze.