fennel

As you may have spotted on veggie adventure, I was over to Procida island, in the Bay of Naples, Italy last week.

Not any kind of tourist trap, it was interesting to be able to grab a few minutes to look at what was happening in gardens.

Of course, their season is longer than ours and is enjoying temperatures higher than ours too.

So, as well as lemons, tangerines, pomegranates, olives and figs on the trees, there was interesting stuff at ground level to look at.

Here, fennel seedlings have been transplanted into the soil. The soil around the transplants has been soaked by making walls of earth to trap the water.

Of course, waterfall is very precious in the south of Italy and steps must be taken to make maximum use of what they have. I wonder whether this method could be useful to us in the cooler north of Europe? I've never had much luck with fennel but love its aniseed flavour. This may be the way of growing it successfully in our conditions.