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Wild Medicinal Fennel Foeniculum Vulgare Seeds
Packet of 50+ home grown organic seeds!
This one is the perfect choice for folks that love star anise or licorice, but don’t have the time of climate to grow them.
Being the medicinal form it is a bit different to the supermarket varieties of fennel, in that it doesn’t produce the large crisp white bulb at the bottom, and both the male and female plants are useful.
This one is the wilder undomesticated type that is more herb than a vegetable, and you mostly use the leaves, seeds and flowers.
The stems can be added to slow cooked or pressure cooker meals and then removed after cooking much the same as you do with bay leaf or lemon grass stems.
You can eat them too(I do, but I eat pretty much anything..) but they are really fibrous and a bit woody, especially as they get older.
This is a very hardy plant and as such it is common roadside weed in parts of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania(see big red text at bottom) and for this reason in cool moist climates it is best to grow it in pots.
Up here in QLD it is nowhere near the weed issue but even so keep an eye on it.
If you are growing it mainly for the soft tender new leafy growth cut it back hard every now and then to keep it branching and maximise the yield.
I just hack the top off at knee high with a cane knife a couple times a year.
You could always leave it to do its thing but be aware it will then grow tall and leggy, straight up to about 2meters.
Once it hits that height, or is more than a year old it will start to throw flowers and then the seeds will set and you can pick heaps from just a couple plants.
The flowers and young tender leaves are awesome dipped in beer batter and deep fried tempura style.
The the whole or roughly chopped seeds are the perfect rub for meats or to chuck in spice blends and marinated for a bit of oompf.
I like to put the leaves or seeds in a cup with a little boiling water and hit it with the wizz stick blender to make a really refreshing energising tea.
Traditionally medicine says ingestion of large quantities of seeds or oil may have a calmative and sedative effects, but to me it really seems like the opposite?
Perks me right up.
That said I have only ever had sensible amounts and I suggest you do the same.
It is also said to increase milk production, promote menstruation, ease birth, and increase libido and these alleged effects led to heaps of research in the 1930s.
These days it is grown on a huge scale overseas for production of anethol oil, flavourings and in liquor’s like absinthe and sambuca.
It’s a really tasty herb, it is super easy to grow, and if you are a fan of liquorice, or Aniseed Flavoured Herbs then taking note of the big red text below, it is one you really need in your collection!
