Fennel

[RocW]

Last year I posted a question about growing my own because fennel from the supermarket didn't taste of anything. i had some great responses and decided to have a go at growing it this year. i have grown four plants each of two varieties and yesterday we decided to have one with our Sunday roast. It was not quite as bulbous as I had hoped and there were lots of sideshoots coming off the base, which I don't remember with the supermarket produce. When we cut it, it had a very hard core which had seperated from the rest of the bulb and it had no flavour whatsoever. In fact, SWMBO reckoned that it had a slightly unpleasant "unfennely" taste. We tried a couple of others and they were just the same. Eventually, I pulled them all up and put them to be composted. I wonder if this is due to the weather we have had over the last few weeks or whether I should have cut it earlier. If anybody has any ideas or advice I would be very grateful.

[masterchef]

May be your soil, do you have any problems with other produce?
Could also be due to the weather, as you say; there was a lack of rain in this country this year.

[Redhelen72]

Fennel should be harvested when the bulbs are about the size of a tennis ball, after that it tends to lose flavour and become woody.

[RocW]

Many thanks, both. I reckon that the soil is OK; I have beetroot and chard growing in the same bed as the fennel and they look fine. I usually feed the soil over winter. I think Redhelen is right; I should have harvested it a lot earlier. The bulbs were certainly bigger than tennis balls. I read that fennel needs to be fed regularly. Maybe I overdid it a bit. Another item to add to my "Things I have learned the hard way this year" list.

[Redhelen72]

I think gardening is all about learning tbh.
I won't bother growing snow peas again - I keep missing then and when I find them they are to far gone and are as tough as old boots.
I cannot grow beetroot for love nor money but my peppers and tomatoes are amazing and I have so far harvested 30 peppers from 2 plants so far.

[RocW]

Wow - that's amazing! I have three capsicums in the greenhouse and they have just produced their first reasonable sized fruit. I have been taking some of the fruit off the plants as I didn't think that they would be capable of producing more than five or six per plant. Maybe I should let one of them fruit as much as it likes and see what happens. i have no problem with beetroot apart from sparrows eating the plants as soon as they show, so I have to put a pop up cage over the raised bed until the plants are too big for the sparrows to bother with. In a spirit of optimism, I have planted mor fennel. We'll see...