Sounds like a pretty typical fennel seedling to me -- I've grown them for years. Get them hardened off (which has more to do with gradually exposing them to direct sunlight and wind than it does temp) and then plant them in the garden. You want to bury that long root up the the point of the bulb (the base of the leaves, I guess is the best way to describe it -- it's a bit thicker there). I know they're supposed to be bolt prone with handling, but that just hasn't been my experience. Those wispy plants will bulb up soon enough once you get them in the ground.

Thanks mary,

I was wondering whether to bury that thread. Now I wonder if I should have buried my similarly stringy cabbage seedlings the same way. I gave up on growing cabbage seedlings and just started direct seeding because I always got those things on stilts.

Chuck

Hi chuck60,

i read some where the fennel is not a friendly plant to other plants and should be grown away form other plants.

i have not done well with fennel.

Dean

Are you growing Florence Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare var. azoricum) with the bulb-like root, or regular Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), that is used for the seeds? The regular kind doesn't have the large root.

Fennel really is allelopathic to other plants, so don't plant it near anything important. OTOH, it does seem to keep the weeds away from itself!

Remove those seed heads, or you'll have fennel all over your yard.

Sue

The pack says it is the bulbing kind. I'll have to think about where to plant it if it interferes with other vegetables. When Jamie pulled his from the garden I didn't notice what it was planted near!

Chuck

Chuck -- based on observation in my gardens (where I grow both the perennial leaf fennel and bulb fennel), any alleopathic effect is minor. Don't sweat your bulb fennel. I've planted it next to all sorts of things with no obviously noticable impact on production in the neighbors. I will say that in my zone, I can grow bulb fennel only in the spring and early summer and then again in the fall. It will not take the heat of high summer.