Growing Licorice

Growing Licorice. A couple of years ago I picked up some exotic seeds at a garden center somewhere in the midwest and last year I successfully grew huckleberries (they were quite disappointing – hardly any flavor to them when raw and a bit too bitter to be used as stewed fruit), tomatilloes (they got a bit out of control and took over the greenhouse, but the fruit failed to ripen properly) and starting growing licorice.

The latter I started off in a medium-sized plastic pot (the sort you typically get fruit bushes in when you buy them from garden centers) and while one stalk developed to about three feet in height, I wasn’t sure it was going to be able to do much more, so I decided to plant it out.

Checking the seed packet, I spotted a warning that licorice can be quite invasive. Luckily I’ve had an old plastic bucket with a cracked base hanging around for a while, so I ripped the base right out, took off the handle and dug a hole big enough to take the bucket, next to one of my recently-planted loganberry plants.