Harvesting Fennel

Our herb garden grew really well this year. Interestingly I only added some peppermint that our friends Mary and Sky Blue gave us. We had everything else come back including wormwood, valerian, rosemary, elephant ear sage, oregano, yarrow and a ton of fennel.


Through the summer the boys and I watched many different insects come and pollinate the tiny yellow flowers that bloom on the plant. We had all sorts of different bees and flying any sort of things. Earwigs, we discovered, hid out in the little spaces where the delicate leaves grow off the stalk (I tried not to show my gross out factor over that!)

 

After these are worked over by our insect friends, they dry out and form the seeds. I hardest a lot of the leaves through the summer, but I wait till the end of summer to get the seeds as well. Aidan helped me clip them this year, and as we did he realized we were 'harvesting.' He was pretty stoked about that and even made up his own harvest song on the spot. 

A;; of the little heads of the flowers were put into a bowl, and we pulled off all the little seeds.

We got quite a few seeds this year (although we did have a bit left over in our jar from last year).

2010's fennel was then stored with all the rest of our home grown and supplier bought herbs.