fennel failure!

[divingmissleah]

I don't know HOW I managed to grow such pathetic specimens but my fennel bulbs are minute. In fact I can't even call them bulbs. They were sown in may in a composted and raised bed along with beetroot and are a non bolting variety. They appeared to be growing well but I've pulled up 2 and the 'bulbs' are non existent - about the size of a cereal spoon. Any tipes for growing decent sized bulbs next time. I live in Oxford in case region is important.

[Guest]

I was surprised to read about fennel failure.
Fennel is one of those vegetables that I have all of the time and it's really good in the early spring when there isn't a lot of stuff around.

Do you have the right kind of fennel?
There are two kinds here. Florence fennel produces the fat bulbs. (The bulbs are a little bit above the surface of the soil.) Bronze fennel grows wild but doesn't have bulbs much at all.

Florence fennel produces bulbs that muliply but can be small if they go to seed very quickly. They are more likely to do this (go to seed) when the weather is warmer, later in the season, but some plants seem more likely to do it too. I have tried separating bulbs and propagating those which don't go to seed as quickly (common sense, I thought) but I still don't seem to have a "fat, late" crop.

[Chickenlady]

Hello! Did you mean to post this here? Welcome to the board. Sorry I know nothing about fennel, though...

[Andy Hamilton]

Hi there, never tried to grow fennel myself I must admit. But on the river cottage HFW (thats the bloke who presents the TV Show BTW) grows his in a poly tunnel and he grow huge ones the extra growing time helps. heres a link that should help http://www.selfsufficientish.com/fennel.htm

And may I say welcome to the site too.