Anyone who’s tended a vegetable patch for more than a season will likely start to consider some inventive and novel uses for those parts of the plant that never make it to supermarket shelves – especially after investing all of that care and attention. Using the flowers, leaves, roots and seeds from different plants is a fun and nutritious way to add some colour and imagination to your plate, and make the most of a plant’s edible parts.
Zucchini flowers, picked early in the morning, can be stuffed and fried and will help control late summer’s inevitable glut of overblown marrows. Parsley root can be added to soups or stews for a hearty flavour boost, beetroot leaves give a nutrient boost to a healthy juice and the green flower spikes (otherwise known as scapes) that signal garlic is almost ready to harvest can be transformed into the most delicious pesto to enjoy on toast or in pasta dishes.
A scape harvest (alongside a handful of chamomile flowers), before and after
There’s also one superhero vegetable that has edible roots, bulbs, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds. Introducing…fantastic fennel!
I have to admit, the first year I grew fennel, it was more for the fanciful idea that ‘Florence fennel’ sounded like a nice, heirloomy Old World thing that I should have in my garden. I don’t mind a bit of roasted up fennel bulb on occasion but it’s not really something I’ve eaten a lot of up to now unless it’s served up to me by someone else. As it went, I didn’t pay it much attention after planting and eventually it went to tall, leggy seed over summer – much to the delight of the local waxeyes who had a field day eating all the aphids living on the aged seed heads, and much to the satisfaction of a couple of local producers on the receiving end of giant jars of free seed.
This year I decided to give it another go as a vegetable to sell at the local farmers’ market – helped along by a decent crop of self seeded babies that popped up in late summer and which I duly transplanted into neat rows in a new bed. I also made sure that I kept a close eye on the developing bulbs, added good compost and gave a regular feed of worm juice and seaweed solution. A few fat bulbs were ready this week, and attached to each was a fat, tapering creamy carrot-like taproot…which immediately got me to thinking ‘that’s probably edible’. Sliced off before sending the bulbs to market I took a look online for some fennel root recipes. Turns out everyone translates ‘root’ to ‘bulb’ though so I’ve had to go this one alone.
And so to the obvious question – what does it taste like? Well, not nearly as aniseedy as I’d imagined it would. In fact, there’s only a bare hint of that characteristic fennel flavour and instead it tastes a lot like a cross between a carrot and a parsnip. As a raw root veg it tastes fine so I opted to add thinly shaved slices to a tray of roasting broccoli. Topped off with a little tahini-lemon dressing – delicious!
And if you’re wondering about a couple of the other parts of the plant I mentioned – fennel fronds are a great addition to salads, or cut up and served with fish or potatoes, fennel pollen is on-trend in gourmet chef circles and of course the seed can be used across the board – from breads to cheeses, meats and vegetarian dishes to a herbal digestive tea.
In short, this little foray into the wonders of fennel has given me a new-found admiration for this vegetable and very pleased that I can glean a small crop of something unusual for my plate while making some cash from main crop sales.
Now, how to go about harvesting fennel pollen…
Thanks for abeautiful article Nathalie, am so going to try the fennel thing this season. While we can get nice bulbs from the Hill Street grocer, they of course do not have the root attached so it’s a new planting experiment for us!
Thanks Ian. They’re a gorgeous addition to the garden whether you do or don’t harvest them (I try to let a few go to seed, they’re great insect and bird attractors and have big umbrella flower heads). Grocers cut the fronds off because they take up so much space I expect – and it takes a bit of care to pull up a whole fennel root without breaking it (use a trowel to help you!)