I should have been checking the weather last week, because I almost lost some things in a frost. Luckily I decided to check the garden one morning, so I was able to dig the last few radishes. And harvest the fennel. I thought the arugula got killed, but it seems to have recovered, so we’ll be having fresh salad for Thanksgiving. I’m sure the kids will love arugula.
I’m quite happy with how the fennel turned out this year. It seemed to have a weird growth cycle. First it grew tall stalks with some leaves, and then bloomed. I’ve harvested a bunch of seeds and have been using the leaves in salads, but I was disappointed that like last year, there were no bulbs. Fennel bulbs are the best part of the fennel (or maybe tied with the seeds). I love them raw or roasted.
A couple weeks ago I got the last of the seeds and cut off the stalks. Then I noticed that the plants had started to put up shorter stalks from…bulbs!
So when I noticed everything was frozen on Thursday morning, I cut down almost all the fennel. The leaves are in a paper bag, hopefully drying–the icier leaves went into the compost–and the bulbs are either in the freezer or the fridge, depending on whether they felt frozen or not.
So maybe that’s what fennel usually does, first one tall stalk, then several shorter ones from a bulb. And a freaking long taproot. I guess I’ll find out what happens next year; I suspect it’s dropped a ton of seeds into the garden, since a bunch of seedlings came up this year already.
Anyone have a favorite fennel recipe you want to share?