Fennel is a spicy essential oil plant of the umbelliferous family. Its root is yellow and fleshy. The stalk of the plant is straight, it contains leaves of a triangular shape. The stem and leaves are covered with a blue bloom. It blossoms with small yellow flowers, collected in inflorescences - umbrellas. The fennel has a grayish-green color of oblong form, and inside the fruit there are many small seeds. The plant blooms in summer, its fruits ripen in autumn.
The healing plant of fennel is very useful for human health. It contains many vitamins, it has antibacterial, choleretic and diuretic properties. Patients with impaired intestinal motility are useful in fennel as an antispasmodic. In addition, fennel soothing effects on the human nervous system. Its essential oil helps to remove toxins and toxins from the body. It has an expectorant and anti-inflammatory effect, it is useful for hypertensives and cores. It is recommended to use fennel oil for dysbacteriosis, cystitis, hepatitis and other diseases. But he also has contraindications - you can not use it for children and women during pregnancy.
Fennel varieties
There is one secret when choosing a brand of fennel: it must be chosen in accordance with the season of the year in which you want to plant it. If, for example, the autumn or spring varieties you plant in the summer, then all the plants will go to the arrow.
In general, fennel is popular among summer residents. The branchy fragrant bush grows to two meters in height. Used as a spicy seasoning. Common fennel is often confused with dill. However, fennel has a peculiar taste and smell.
Varieties of vegetable fennel Florentine, Italian large form kochanchiki - thickened base of leaf petioles. Of these kochanchikov do salads, they extinguish. The leaves of vegetable fennel in fresh and dried form are used as seasoning for dishes. And fruits are used in conservation, in bread and confectionery products, in the manufacture of perfumes. The newly developed decorative varieties of fennel Purpureum and Giant Bronze are very elegant: the young leaves of one of them are bronze-purple, later they become bluish. And leaves of another grade are copper at first, and then they become brownish-bronze.
How to grow fennel?
Here are some recommendations on how to grow fennel. The plant is unpretentious and capricious. Before planting, the bed should be well loosened and add about 10 liters of compost per square meter. Carefully once again loosen the ground with compost, and the garden is ready for planting. Seeds are first sown in trays, then transplanted into pots or boxes and grow seedlings. If you sow seeds in a greenhouse, then you can do it, bypassing the seedlings, immediately into the ground. Seedlings are better to grow vegetable fennel, and to get green, you can sow seeds directly into the ground.
Fennel - care
Caring for fennel ordinary is simple and consists of regular watering of the plant, loosening the soil and fertilizing it with nitrogen fertilizers. But to take care of fennel vegetable is more troublesome. In addition to constant loosening of the soil and regular watering, it is necessary to slightly plant the plant after the base of the leaves begins to thicken. At the same time, the kochanchik will grow white, not green from the sun. Another option - to close the ground around the base of the plant with paper that does not let sunlight pass. Plant fennel on your site and you will not regret it. This wonderful spicy plant will provide you with vitamins and medicines grown with your own hands.