, you shouldn’t be eating those).
Dill, fennel and carrots. Although, Iike seasoning foods with anise and cumin.
I found carrot seeds very tasty! Dill taste like Grassy/Zesty Fennel without Licorice flavor. Fennel taste like Licorice dill with sweet undertone. I like both Dill & Fennel, what do you think will happen if they cross? I’ve read it’s possible to cross them both but the result ruins what makes both good.
Cumin is a must have! Have you tried the True Black Cumin (Elwendia persica)? I found them at the Indian Grocery Store sold under the name Kala Jeera. They taste like Perfume!
I love anise seed too! Are the Greens/Flowers of Aniseseed (Pimpinella anisum) edible too?
Was there anything that interested you from my list?
I wouldn’t want to cross dill and fennel even if I could. The flavors are best as stand alone. I have not tried the true black cumin, it sounds delicious. I haven’t grown anise and dont know much about it…
Maybe you could be a seed steward for the aromatic spice plants, and carrots. I dont know if they are a GTS mix.
I already have a fennel mix, carrots and dill to grow now and again in the spring. My garden is out of space.
Hmm… I need to taste the Hybrid for myself to see if its worth it. Imagine Florence style bulbs but for dill? Also does Fennel pickles work like dill pickles?
I could send you seeds if you’d like to try them? I got mine from the Indian Grocery Store, you might be able to find them at your local Indian Grocery Store too!
Can’t, I don’t have the Logistical Know How On how to make it work. + I have no land & won’t be able to “Steward” anything. It’s another reason why I want to Garden.
Wait, so how to you keep dill & fennel from crossing? Do you sow them at different times or at different places? And what kinds of fennel do you have in your mix? Bulb forming, Bronze Fennel, Lucknowi Sweet Seed Fennel, ect?
For two years, I had a greenhouse separate from the backyard garden.The greenhouse had the fennel, while the garden grew the dill. But a storm last year destroyed the greenhouse. And, I have grown them together, but I didn’t have the fennel go to seed. The fennel was produced to eat only.
There was three or four varieties of dill, I’m planting now… sow results will follow in a few weeks. We are getting yet one more ten day heat wave, 103 degrees or higher. Yuck.
I have grown the bronze and several of the bulbing fennels, its delicious in salads.
You could steward the herbs, they grow in containers? Your so knowledgeable maybe there could be an exception from growing…
Well, that would be marvelous, easy peasy relish and pickles. But hard to tell if the flavors would swap parts like that or just stay mixed? I do like fennel pickled with vinagar, but not much else is added.
fennel pickled with vinegar? Just fennel in vinergar or pickle gurkins added? I tried with estragon, terragon i believe it’s called in English, very nice dressing!
The fennels i have are bronze and green, the green one has great seeds , but not very viable, i moved the bronze one closer so they can cross, the bronze ones do have viable seeds, but smallish…
Carrots i can’t seem to grow and the seeds produce white scribbly fiber roots, i gave up.
I love corianders and have a red variety growing, which made me think it was posion hemlock. It’s a dangerous world out there!!
Interesting, I’ve also read that once florence fennel bulb is harvest, it may regrow from the roots. I’ve also heard roots are edible too! Did you know how to tell Fennel & Dill apart? The only difference I’ve learned are
Am I wrong or did I miss anything?
OOoh… Dill has multiple varieties!? I thought Most Varieties were simply too generic as There is no Big Cultivar Group Scene with Dill like there is with Squash, Melon, Brassica or even Fennel. I was under the impression (From Heirloom seed savers) that Dill was mostly like a wild herb where the only variety is just the species Anethum graveolens. Please do tell me about the different varieties of Dill that are available. I’ve only managed to notice that the Dill from McCormick looks very different from the dill I buy at the Indian Grocery Store (I was sure they had to be different Unnamed varieties).
Also are there any hybrid Fennel x Dill Varieties? Or is it all just Highly Diverse Pure Dill Anethum graveolens?
AMAZING! is there an actual difference between Purple Fennel & Bronze Fennel? Did the Bronze Fennel taste better than the regular bright green fennel? I’ve heard the bronze fennel had a stronger anise flavor, is this true from you experience?
I don’t know. I do have a few containers but GroundHog Eats all the leaves of anything I grow there, & Squirrels Dig up the container soil to Plant Walnuts. It’s such a mess. That is the hard part, so much Knowledge yet no where to put it to good use. Despite that I keep learning because I believe that one day I will get land to garden on, I just need to be patient & be on the look out for any opportunity that presents itself. I’m happy I’ve learned so much so far, the internet has truly been a blessing, especially the GTS community here.
I think it all depends on the selection. Who knows, maybe if we keep crossing & totally new flavor may arise that could be better or worse. Maybe we could select for short node sheaths on only Dill to make it like Bulbing fennel or let both cross & select out the fennel flavor?
What color are the seeds of the green fennel vs the Bronze Fennel. I found 2 different kinds of Fennel seeds at the grocery store. One is the typical Light Tan kind that taste like salty licorice & the other is the Green Colored Thinner Seeds that have a Better Crunch, a Brighter/Slightly sweeter Flavor. I expect both kinds to be fully viable. Especially since I seen the Roasted Fennel Seeds & specifically didn’t buy those.
I hope you do get them to Cross, I’d love to do some amazing Fennel Breeding! Would it be possible to get bronze colored Florence Bulbing Fennel?
Do they happen to be the Wild Carrot (Cuz they make smallish/fibrous white roots)? Have you also tried eating the Carrot Greens? Forager Samuel Thayer says that the Tender young Shoot before it goes to flower can be peeled & makes an Excellent Vegetable.
Maybe consider growing Carrot for the seeds as they also have excellent flavor on their own (Even if the root taste bad).
Poison Hemlock & Coriander look quite different upclose but I can see the confusion form a distance as both look like Carrot Family plants (Cuz they both are). I’m still learning but I imagine at the seedling stage, it can be quite hard to distinguish.
Also do you use your coriander as Cilantro or only for the seeds? I’m unusual cuz I don’t like the way the leaves taste but absolutely love the way the seeds taste. Have you also tried the Flesh immature Green seeds (I’m curious on what they taste like)?
The seeds are green and really big vs brown and medium/small. They taste quite similar. Bronze bulby fennel. I hardly manage green bulb fennel.
I tasted carrot seed. It’s nice. I wondered if I was freaky. So no. Hmm maybe. I made soup of the leaves and that’s nice, but not of the wild ones, it has less carrotty taste in the leaves.
The corianders I like both. Foliage and ketumbar and the seeds fresh are other dimensional too. But I didn’t eat a lot because it was a first grex of five varieties or something and it needs to spread in the serendipity.
Bronze fennel is more fragrant than the standard bulbing green. I have not paid close attention to the seeds as you have.
I dont know about hybrid varieties as I have only purchased heirlooms. Dill grows really tall and the frilly leaves are spaced differenty…fennel grows from the rootball and is bushy looking. Yes, the fragrance of the leaves will easily distinguish them apart once 8 inches tall or so. Ill try to regrow fennel from the roots this season, just planting the first seeds this week, dill too.
The difference in dill varieties is slight, some just produce more seed heads, one was super fragrant. Yet another variety was heat tolerant…just google heirloom dill, several companies should pop up with differt varieties…same with celery, it comes in white stem, pink, green and red.
Carrots took me several years too, the Usbek variety from Baker creek did the best, a yellow rooted carrot.
I use corriander seed, ground for culinary dishes, its delicious. And I use the cilantro leaves too for flavoring a recipe or salsa. My favorite tomato sauce for spaghetti has fennel bulb or seed.
I think you’re onto something @Kimzy Kim, Bronze Fennel is lovely in salads, the green variety i have, no idea what since most seeds i grow come from local seed exchanges, is less attractive that way. It’s seeds are though! And it’s seeds are popping this year, i saw yesterday, so i’ll have a whole bed full of them next year. Hopefully… I’ll add a Bronze one at the other end and fiddle around with the offspring.
I love having those seeds for tea and i’ll try spaghetti sauce.
Celery is my first year slight succes, meaning it didn’t die, someone send me some seeds, i got to ask for more to try another place, where does it grow good for you? Shade or full sun?
Dill i haven’t noticed much difference either than in height and amount of seeds they produce.
Is Parsnips in the Apiacea family? And parsley?
Celery and carrot prefer full sun but do get afternoon shade, at least six hours of sunshine. Yes, parsley and parsnip are part of the Apiacea family. Beware, you’re closer to wild meadows and forest type areas, no? Some wild versions in Apiacea are phototoxic/poisonous…water hemlock, poison hemlock, spotted cowbane, fools parsley, water dropwort…Im not well versed about any of the phototoxic types, just what was briefly researched.
The seed does germinate and grow well for me by simply raking the soil and then hand broadcast. The soil was amended with composted wood chips a couple years ago and worm castings. Im thinking the addition of organic materials helped create a bridge or translation for non adapted seed to gain a roothold. Years ago the plain sand didnt grow much of anything. Now the garden soil grows many types of food plants.
Nice! I’m glad to know what I’ve read adds up with your experience. Is there a difference between Purple Fennle & Bronze Fennel? I can’t tell if it’s the same type of cultivar or not (Perhaps Bronze young growth tips & Purple Mature Foilage?).
Interesting, are you only speaking about the Cultivated Florence fennel or are you including wild non Bulbing Fennel too?
Here’s The differences Between Dill & Fennel in Picture form (They look Extremely Similar).
I also found a Dill with Small Wings seeds at the Indian Grocery Store. I wonder if it’s Anethum foenculoides, a different species of Dill, which Apparently it grows into a shrub? Tasted like Dill seeds to me, so perhaps it’s just another variation of Anethum graveolens or what if it was indeed a Fennel x Dill Hybrid? IDK what the seeds would look like other than Intermediately Winged Seeds?
I suspect you will have good success because just Look at how Big Fennel Roots can get! Makes me wonder how the Roots taste like, I’ve read it’s edible raw or cooked & taste some-what like Parsnip.
I see, the difference are small, nothing like in the Highly Polymorphic Cucurbita pepo with entire cultivar groups, Dill no have that, only Fennel does. Makes me wanna cross dill x fennel to see if I can up the diversity of choice to select the BEST Taste possible! Imagine Bronze Dill?
Amazing! Makes me wanna use Fennel in Tomato Sauces too! Do you think the Fennel seeds would be too strong or would ruin the texture of Tomato Sauces?
Have you tried the Corriander flowers or Green Seeds? I’ve heard they have a stronger flavor. Do you also keep Corainder & Cilantro separate or have the same plant used for both parts?
Awesome! I’d love to grow some Bronze Fennel too! Was only the Young Leaves Bronze color & the rest of the plant dark purplish? Did the seeds also taste pleasent? And would Lucknowi Fennel Grow good greens too? It seeds are much more Green & Taste Sweeter.
Yes but so do our Domesticates too! Parsnip for example also has the same Phototoxin thing going on. Forager Samuel Thayer said he never experienced rash on his lips from eating these plants (Like Parsnip & Cow-Parsnip even tho both have the Phototoxin thing going on). The problem is mostly with the Sun beaming at any juice that got onto your skin & being sweaty! Dry uncut plants are unlikely to give you rashes or if it’s a Very Cloudy Day or during Night.
Here’s the Caution part of Parsnip in Sam Thayers Newest Book. Note how it says Domestic or Wild in Red!
I’m not sure about Poison Hemlock having the phototixns, I’ve heard some people say it does & doesn’t. Perhaps some people touched it dry or on cloudy days?
I LOVE IT!!! WHOO HOOO, this makes me happy to read how your soil is improving! Did you take any before & after photos?
I dont know…I have not grown the purple as if yet.
I have not grown the wild fennel, only the florence type.
I have yet to seed a shrub of dill. Ive only grown heirloom common types that are annual.
Fennel roots are a favorite food of gophers. They will tunnel directly to them and even chew through plastic plug trays to get them. Im thinking the roots are tasty…will try them this year.
You only need one half of a teaspoon of chopped up or smashed fennel seed for sauce…I use it instead of basil, still add a chopped onion and a few cloves of garlic…sauteed in olive oil first, before adding tomato puree.
Coriander is delicious as flowers, the dame plant produces fresh leaves first as Cilantro…then it goes to seed for corriander. IDK what variety I have ended up with, i grow my seed year after year and its great in both forms, from the same plant.
Parsnip juice hadnt been an issue for me…good to know it is also phototoxic.
No before pictures of the bare sand…my garden grows good vegetables. I still chop and drop all spent plants so hopefully the cycle is now good.
I accidentally used fennel instead of dill in fermented cucumber “dill” pickles once. It was terrible.
I have some skirret, which is in the carrot family. The plants haven’t made seeds yet. I’m not sure if they will before frost – I may not have watered them enough to sexually reproduce (but they’ve divided themselves into separate plants just fine). If they do make some seeds, I’d be happy to share some.
I also have lovage; same thing. They didn’t make seeds this year, but they did survive. They died down to the roots during by the end of July (probably for some silly reason like me not watering them for two months), but after our August downpour of rain, they grew back and are now about a foot tall. Neato. I’d like to get seeds eventually, but I’m content just to have stalks and leaves in spring and fall.
I do have anise seeds. I had six plants, and they did great and made lots of seeds. I’d be happy to share some. I read online that they’re summer crops, but they doesn’t seem to be the case – they were perfectly happy growing through the winter for me, just like carrots, and they flowered in spring and made lots of seeds and then died down for the summer. Great fit for my typical winter-wet summer-dry weather.
I have plenty of dill seeds. I got one tiny dill plant from a fellow gardener in my area. She said it was a weed. She was right. Wow, that thing is a weed! It grew tall and made oodles of seeds, and it was only one plant, and I barely watered at all. Tasty weeds that need no irrigation are perfect for my needs, so I’ll probably see if it wants to join the mix I’m sprinkling to take over my lawn. 
I think I may have some celery seeds I got from another person in my area. I can check and see, if that’s something somebody wants from me.
I didn’t get any carrot seeds this year. I accidentally pulled all my overwintering carrots out in the spring. Oh, well! They were tasty! I clearly need to plant a lot more of them.
Hmm very interesting ideas going on here. I’ll have to remember to try carrot seeds as a spice now. And fennel root.
Has anyone tried common hogweed? It very much grows as a weed where I live and I often forage the seeds and various parts of the plants for vegetable use. It’s seeds are a little like coriander but maybe with a citrus like taste too. The aroma of the fresh plant is unlike anything I have ever tasted, I absolutely love it. I once read a report on it’s viability as a cash crop, maybe that could become a reality hehe.
Just be aware it looks an awful like giant hogweed and readily crosses. They both contain phototoxic chemicals too.
In what way? Is there something about Dill that helps fermentation for pickling taste better? Or is it just that the Fennel Flavor doesn’t go well or ferment well?
Awesome! I hope they do. SO basically they didn’t bolt just stayed in basal rosset the entire time? Skirrit is part of the Oenantheae Tribe which is the Water Loving Tribe of the carrot family. Basically all member of that tribe like to grow in Water or nearby water. it’s also the same tribe that has VERY DEADLY poisonous look alikes, for example Water Hemlock (Cicuta
maculata) is part of that tribe.
It’s interesting how your skirret found a way to survive in such a water limited climate. It would probably do super well in a pod or the lowest spot on your property.
Wait so you get stalks but now flower stalks? How does Lovage taste btw?
I think they might’ve switched up Star Anise (Illicium verum) with Apiaceae family Aniseseed (Pimpinella anisum). Indeed star Anise are summer Crops. Quick Question, are all Carrot Family cool season crops? Are there any truly tropical Apiaceae Crops? or is it mostly a Temperate climate kind of thing?
Awesome! I love when crops grow like weeds. I remember Gardeners on YouTube Always said the volunteers are usually stronger & more vigorous. Perhaps they were landrace gardening without knowing it 
.
Oh my! Speaking of which, how do you breed for a good carrot root crop while being able to try the carrot to see which one you like? Take a Bite & put it back? Cuz once the plant flowers, the root is no good.
You may not have to, just forage for Wild Carrot or Queen Anne’s Lace for it’s seeds. I’m sure flavor is the same as Domesticated Carrot seeds but I haven’t tried Domesticated Carrot Seeds to compare the taste.
By Hogweed, do you mean Cow Parsnip (Heracleum maximum)? Or the really Huge Heracleum mantegazzianum? I’ve never encountered either.
Very interesting, seed taste like Coriander? Even for the Heracleum mantegazzianum? I’ve nevered tried Hogweed, Sam Thayer said the roots have an Very Strong Spicy-Bitter Flavor that isn’t for all palates. Is it Clear your Sinus Spicy like Black Mustard (Brassica nigra)?
Would be Interesting. What if you crossed it with Parsnip (Pastinaca sativa)? Both are in the same Tribe Tordylieae. What kinds of traits would you select for breeding? Seeds?
Fascinating, so there are no Hybridization barriers? Does that mean every Heracleum species can Cross? If so what do the hybrids look & Taste like? Sam Thayer has reported eating the Petioles of Giant Hogweed. He says the Tender Young Growth may also be eaten like that of Cow Parsnip. He also says roots may not be edible.
