Easter Sunday at my Italian mother's house wasn't complete without her traditional sausage pie and finocchio salad. Being a vegetarian I don't eat the rich tasting sausage pie anymore, but I still love finocchio or Florence fennel. Florence fennel is a cultivated version of the wild fennel plants that are native to the Mediterranean. Fennel has been used for years as a food, medicine and flavoring. I like taking a small handful of fennel seed and eating them raw when my stomach is a bit off.
Florence fennel is named after the city where it was discovered. While wild fennel is grow for its leaf and seed production, Florence fennel is a shorter plant that forms a bulbous stem at the ground level. This stem has a mild licorice flavor, great crunch and a sweet taste. I often chop it up and to make a raw salad with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. You can also roast it to bring out the sweet flavor. Florence fennel will eventually form a flat, yellow, flower head if you don't harvest the plant. It's good to leave some fennel flowers in the garden because they're favorites of beneficial insects and you may get some seeds to harvest too.
Florence fennel grows best in cool, moist conditions. Sow seeds or transplants now to mature in early summer or sow in mid summer for a fall harvest. I like 'Orion' and 'Solaris' for varieties. If you don't thin plants well or they get heat or water stressed they may not form bulbs. Even so, you can still eat the ferny foliage or cook it in soups.
And now for this week's tip, don't make volcanoes with your bark mulch. Often gardeners will just pile new mulch on top of old forming a volcano-like cones around a tree trunk. This leads to disease and eventual tree death. Instead, remove old mulch first, add a 2 to 4 inch thick layer of new mulch and keep it away from the tree trunk.
Next week on the Vermont Garden Journal, I'll be talking about lilies. Until then, I'll be seeing you in the garden.
Broadcast on Friday, May 16, 2014 at 5:57 p.m. and Sunday, May 18, 2014 at 9:35 a.m.
The Vermont Garden Journal with Charlie Nardozzi is made possible by Gardener's Supply, offering environmental solutions for gardens and landscapes. In Burlington, Williston and Gardeners.com
Resources:
Growing Florence Fennel
How to Grow Florence Fennel
