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Herbs
Leafy greens
Salad Blends
Smoothie Blends
Microgreens
Edible Flowers:
You don’t often think of grandma’s flower garden as a good place to harvest your lunch, but there are a surprising number of tasty edibles growing in most perennial flower beds. Beyond edible flowers, many (but not all) of these plants also have edible leaves, stems, and tubers too. Once you learn that common many common garden flowers are edible, you’ll never look at those formal flower plantings the same way.
Edible Rose Blossom
A few years ago a friend of mine asked me to write an excerpt for her book, Gardening Like a Ninja: A Guide to Sneaking Delicious Edibles into Your Landscape. My first thought was, why on earth would you have to sneak anything in? There are plenty of edible landscape plants in just about any yard, provided you know where to look.
The trick is, I didn’t always know where to look. Years ago, when we first moved to our homestead, our plan was to establish as many perennial edibles as possible. Our first step in establishing an edible landscape was to take stock of our foundation.
Taking a look at the plantings that already exist on your property, we learned that many of them were, in fact, tasty edibles, they’re just not the same ones you’d find in the grocery store. Hostas and peonies, for example, are both considered delicacies in Japan. I’d already read about those years ago, but I knew there must be more tasty edibles lurking in our yard already.
Quickly researching other established plants on our land led me to find tasty uses for catmint, roses, crabapples, black locust blossoms, daylilies, hibiscus, sumac, impatiens, linden trees, violets, lilacs, and tulips. Many of these plants were grown for their showy blooms, but those also happen to be edible flowers.
Beyond their edible flowers, many of them also have edible shoots, leaves, and tubers too. That means these simple flower garden plants not only offer tasty edible blossoms to top salads and flavor drinks, but they may also provide more substantial nutrition too.
Knowing our land was also the first step in taking ownership of what was ours. Somehow, knowing every bush and tree in the yard by name helped us find a connection to our plants and the world around us that I can’t imagine we’d have achieved otherwise. Strange as it may seem, walking into the yard and picking fresh violets and other edible flowers for a dinner salad with guests not only impressed my company but also helped make my house feel a lot more like a home.
Knowing that plants in your existing perennial beds are edible is also handy in other ways, especially if you’re a parent.
When I was a small child, I ate a significant portion of one of our hedge bushes, and my mom was quite concerned. She always thought that bush smelled funny, and must be toxic. After I’d eaten it, she searched high and low to identify it to make sure I’d be ok, only to find out that the strange hedge was actually a rosemary bush in bloom…
LIST OF EDIBLE FLOWERS
If you’re just looking for a quick list, here’s a quick list of edible flowers below. If you’re looking for some tasty recipes for using each flower, or wondering how they taste, read on my friends.
Angelica
Anise Hyssop
Bachelors Buttons
Bee Balm
Begonia
Borage
Black Locust
Calendula
Carnations
Chamomile
Chickory
Chives (and other alliums)
Chrysanthemum
Clover
Daisy
Dame’s Rocket
Dandelions
Daylilies
Elderflower
Fireweed
Forsythia
Fruit Blossoms (Apple, pear, plum, citrus, etc)
Hibiscus
Hollyhock
Honeysuckle
Hostas
Lavender
Lilac
Linden
Marshmallow
Meadowsweet
Milkweed
Nasturtium
Peonies
Phlox
Rose
Scented Geraniums
Sunflowers
Tulips
Violets
