Wondering which flowers you can eat? There’s a wide variety of edible flowers that are easy to grow.
You might already have some and just aren’t using them.
Edible flowers often come from well-known vegetable, herb, and fruit crops. But there are many that come from ornamental plants too. Even some shrubs and trees.
Find out which flowers are edible—and how you can use them to spice up your cooking and have fun with your culinary creativity.
In this episode, Donna and Steven talk about their favourite edible flowers, and how to use them.
If you’re looking for more fun crops, check out the article about edible perennials at FoodGardenLife.com (You might already be growing some of them!)
And say hi—we love to hear what you think!
I had garnished my salad with these nestum flowers and I was showing this to my colleagues I had my little vial of homemade dressing I shook it up put it on my salad and then all of these aphids started coming out of the neram flowers I guess the apids didn’t really like my
Salad dressing and they decided to March you’re listening to the food Garden life show the show that helps you grow food whether it’s on a balcony in a backyard or bigger I’m your host Steven bigs and I’m your host Donna Bowser together we talk with gardening experts
And we talk about what we’ve done in our years in the Horticultural trade helping you bend the rules and grow food in a way that suits you and your growing zone welcome to this episode of the food Garden life show today we will be talking about edible flowers and I
Thought Donna I would just share a story of my own foolishness maybe as we get started because when I was a young Bachelor and I was gardening I was taking all my own salads to work and probably showing off a little bit and the one day I had garnished my salad
With these neram flowers and I was showing this to my colleagues I had my little vial of homemade dressing I shook it up put it on my salad and then all of these aphids started coming out of the neram flowers I guess the aphids didn’t really like my salad dressing and uh and
They decided to March so um I can’t you know it’s a long time ago I can’t remember what I did but I suspect I probably ate it anyway because I didn’t want to let on that I had all of these aphids in this salad that I’ve been bragging about to all of my
Colleagues oh Steve and that is such a great example of an edible flower I love ners but who’s going to be able to eat them after that yeah well just so wash your NOS before you eat them yeah so anyway I think that’s maybe a fun start but we can dig into more
Serious stuff now and let me tell you about the the really fun edible flower that we’ve grown the last couple of years called sesan button and this is a really neat one also known as the toothache plant and when you take a little nibble of these flowers it has
This numbing effect on your tongue it’s a really weird feeling so it’s not something that I’d recommend springing on your guests and putting on a salad no you don’t want to do that but it’s a really fun novelty if uh if you want to grow it and you know you can say to
Friends look here’s something really cool try this no it’ll give you this weird sensation in your mouth but it’s kind of a fun thing plus it’s a pretty flower so so there’s another funny little story for you well I want us to say that another use of nestum although
We haven’t gotten full hog into nestum yet is to pickle them and serve them the way you would serve papers is it the seed that you’re pickling is it the flower bud what is it exactly it is the green seed that you pickle it’s not the flower Bud because the buds are quite
Big already by the time they’re buds compared to a caper so kind of fun very do you want to do the self atically today like I would love to start with Bonas well why don’t we do it this way let’s do of broad categories so vegetables then herbs then flowers and
Then we’ll finish off with shrubs and trees okay well let so as we dig into veggies let’s start with arugula also known as Rocket do you is that a flower that you eat in your garden Donna oh all the time love it I used to stop eating
It when it bloomed because I thought oh can’t eat those leaves anymore for my pizza or my salads but then I found out just how delicious and spicy the flowers are they’re really amazing you’re either white or yellow and you can just pick them at the same time that you’re
Picking the leaves they can go on and on and on unless you’re letting them recede which is also a good idea okay that’s good now I think one that you’ll give a strong vote for will be fennel because I find the fennel flowers they bring in all the beneficial bugs all the
Pollinators all your little tiny wasps and all these beneficial bugs I grow the bronze fennel and those clumps or those heads of little flowers are just swarming with all these beneficial bugs but anyway the fennel flowers are edible as is the pollen and I remember talking
To a chef who would use fennel flowers on a white plate he would tap them over the edge of the white plate to decorate it with the fennel pollen and so I thought that was a fun little trick but you could use the flowers from the bronze fennel which doesn’t form the
Bulb or if you’re growing the Florence fennel which forms the bulb it too you can eat those flowers and use them in the same way so it’s it’s pretty versatile but also good just from that whole aspect of attracting all these good bugs to the garden now in some
Areas these Fernly fennels as they’re called have been named as invasives so just be careful to check your own area because I was giving away seeds because they produce a lot of seeds and the seeds are so lovely they taste like licorice but someone stopped me and said
Hey that’s that’s considered an invasive weed in this area so just be careful to look at your own lists of invasive weeds because the finnel is a fantastic one and I love that idea of tapping just the pollen I think that is incredible yeah
It’s a fun idea so you know I just want to get in I know you don’t grow broccoli because we’ve talked about that in past weeks but it’s the same as a rugul it’s in the same plant family so it also the kales and the broccoli when they go into
Bloom if you’re in a climate that that lets some overwinter you’ll get a lot of blooms on those and they really attract early season pollinators because they’ve overwintered those flowers are also lovely especially in a stir fry it brings so much color to it yeah that
That’s a good addition too I wanted to jump back to that thought on invasiveness too with the fennel because it brings up such a good point and I was just going to add to that that invasiveness is such an interesting topic because what can be a terrible
Invasive in one place isn’t invasive at all in another and it really really depends on the growing conditions so yeah just a good thing to think about we have trouble actually growing you know that beautiful bronze fennel in some of the cooler regions but it has become
Invasive on the west coast okay good um still talking about veggie I wanted to mention pea flowers do you eat pea flowers I do but strangely sweet pea flowers are poisonous while fresh pea flowers are fine I mean isn’t that strange yeah that’s a good really good
That you mentioned that so for people who are thinking about peas and edible flowers the Sweet Pea which to be clear is grown as a cut flour is not edible but your garden Peas where you’re eating the pea pods those flowers are indeed yeah I’m glad you brought that up Donna
And they’re so tasty those the only risk of eating your pea flowers is that then you don’t get the pee but if you’re doing something special for oh yeah you know a special salad that’s kind of fun or within a day they’ll make a little teeny tiny pea pod so you’ll still have
Part of the flow and the pea pod it’s really quite fun really fun for kids too so uh squash is another edible vegetable flour and when I was teaching at Durham College they had this really neat um Farm to Table program so their culinary program was linked in with their farm
And I remember the one day the chef had put in an order for these zucchini these summer squash that still had the blooms attached at the end because whatever dish he was creating that was part of the look that he wanted so they were harvesting these zucchinis while they
Were still quite small and they had that flower attached at the end so you can do that but you can also pick those as Standalone flowers I know I’ve picked them and stuffed them with cheese and breaded them and deep fried them so lots of different ways you can use everything
Deep fried is fantastic I think we’ve agreed on that before oh yeah with the zucchinis I was when I first heard you could eat them I thought well wait a minute then you won’t get the zucchini which is true your Chef was asking for the female flowers but the good news is
Zucchinis also have male flowers they’re never going to produce the flower you know a little fruit anyways so look at your zucchini plant while it’s in bloom leave some of the males because you do need some pollination well I was going to say something else fair to the males come
On just take those male flowers so they don’t have the little tiny female part on them so those are the male flowers they’re usually a long thin stem and those are just as lovely to eat as stuffed and they have a bit of um can’t even really describe the flavor but like
You I like to stuff them with a ricotta cheese and maybe dip them in a light batter and deep fry them quite lovely very nice okay so we talked about a few veggie flowers and of course there’s more we’re just skimming the surface here but let’s
Think about herbs and the first one on my list is basil oh I love basil basil it’s so it’s so good I’m gonna send you that that that web page with how to pronounce it I think you’re you’re influenced by the British Steve I think that’s where we’re coming from okay pot
Potato basil basil so you’ve eaten the basil flowers yes lovely so um and I love them as a garnish and I love them as a garnish if we’re doing a tomato bacini salad with with basil on top but also a few basil flowers I think it looks stunning it’s that whole layered
Thing right chefs to layer the flavors so even picking the flowers ahead of time and putting them in your oil before you pour them on your salad is quite nice because it infuses that oil with that basil flavor all right let’s Jump Ahead to something that has a very different
Flavor borage and uh it’s a fun one you know interestingly I’ve heard that borage is grown as a a specialty oil seed crop in Manitoba I’ve never bought borage oil but anyway I grow borage in my garden for the beautiful blue color of the flowers and also the fact that
They’re edible and I I describe the flavor as being a little bit cucumber like how about you yeah no I was going to say they’re like eating A Little Cucumber so it makes they look like a beautiful blue I mean that color that blue borage flower color it’s really
Hard to get yeah but the flavor is so unexpected so they’re really nice in mixed drinks or even a glass of water I’ve done with a flour individually put one flour in each of my ice cube tray sections poured water on them and Frozen them and then served
Them that way it’s so refreshing and like they say cool as a cucumber they are refreshing very beautiful love love love the borage flower yeah it’s it’s a color of blue that you rarely see in the garden so it’s pretty special just for that alone
Yeah I mean which is why you hate to pick it because then you’re not going to have it in the garden but you know we’re looking forward to a special party in August or something preserving that borage I guess one last thought on borage too for me in my garden this is
One of those plants that readily self seeds so if I let it drop seed I can count on it coming back year after year and I don’t have to buy more seed no that’s fantastic I actually maybe I’m picking too many I’ve haven’t had that problem
But I do love borage it’s a great herb other herbs I eat I eat cilantro do you eat cilantro yeah I love cilantro and that’s a good one and you know the problem with cilantro is it goes to flour more quickly than we want usually
So at least when it goes to flour and you eat those flowers I I feel a little bit gratified because I don’t always feel I’ve got my money’s worth out of the cilantro leaves or or or I talked to a chef in Calgary Andrew and Andrew who was teaching at the culinary school
Loved the really green B um cilantro seeds so before they turn brown and then fall off and recede so they flow and then the seeds turn green he collects those green seeds because he uses his mortar and pestle and serves that with salmon which which I thought was an
Amazing flavor combination I know some people simply do not like the flavor of cilantro but I love it and so I love the flowers as well as those green seeds and then let a few go to seed if you want but really fun okay good and let’s see
We skipped over chive and chamomile so just throw those out there as a couple other edible herb flowers still which is up there with fennel in terms of attracting all these great pollinators and insects to the garden and it’s These Fine little yellow flowers do you use
Dill flowers at all you know it’s my husband’s favorite flavor oh helpful husband does a lot for me in the garden so I do serve him Dill but I’m not fond of Dill it’s just something I’m not fond of but he loves it so I do use the leaves and sparingly the
Flowers we have more edible flowers more edible herb flowers ornamental flowers and finishing off with a couple of trees and shrubs that’s coming up in just a Moment a shout out today to Irv in Ottawa and Irv great to hear that you’re growing bananas in Ottawa and thanks for checking in about your figs we’re always adding lots of new articles to foodgarden life.com all about how to grow your own whether it’s fruit vegetables herbs things like
Edible Hedges or specific crops like Cardon and recent articles include how to use wood ash in the garden also a list of seed companies because it’s that time of year when we’re ordering seeds find all of that at foodgarden life.com [Applause] you’re listening to the food Garden life show the show that helps you grow food whether it’s on a balcony in a backyard or bigger and now back to our chat about edible flowers I feel like you just jumped ahead of something else though now I’ve forgotten
It well I’ll keep going on my list chives people think chai flowers are complex so a chai flower can look like a big rock that you’ve lobbed at your salad it’s just huge the leaves are nice finely cut but a chive I would say a chai flower is
Better served kind of pulled apart because each individual part of that flow tastes like a little green onion tast tastes like a chive but a big chive flour is just too big in anyone’s salad I think it’s just really bulky that’s a good tip and you know it’s a little bit
Corky in the in the center so when you pull it apart like that you don’t have to deal with that so chives and I think we can throw in there garlic chives too you would treat in that same way we should throw in mint mint flowers are edible right mint flowers oregano
Flowers because they’re they’re in the same family oregano flowers are edible and rosemary that’s such a well-known herb and those beautiful I don’t know quite the word to describe that shade of Bluey purple but those rosemary flowers can look amazing so they’re a little bit more work to pick off because they’re
Sort of lined up and down the stem not like a chai flower it’s right there in front of you you pull one and you’re you’re good to go but um yeah love that love it and this makes me think of one last herb Donna is um thinking of picking off those little rosemary
Flowers made me think of lavend laender and one of the most uh amazing ice creams I’ve ever had was an ice cream that was made from lavender flowers now I would never have put together ice cream and lavender and I was even reluctant to try this but once I did I
Was sold on it it was really good the that taste of the lavender flow with the creaminess it worked so well together so lavender flowers that sounds nice now a chef would probably combine the sweetener as a lavender honey with the you know that layering yeah sounds
Fantastic yeah well let’s jump in so we’ve talked about vegetables we’ve talked about some herbs that have edible flowers let’s talk about some more common annuals with edible flowers what’s on your list I love Bonas the big fluffy double Bonas that if you’ve got a North facing
House you’ll always have as a hanging plant outside again like the chives I just would pick one flower and then pull the flower the the actual individual Parts apart because Bonas are like lemons they’re so they’re just like lemons so adding that to a salad can add a really nice
Flavor it’s not strong it’s lemony the individual petals are very soft and best of all they come in different colors so you can have a white if it’s a a wedding you can have a pale pink you can have a red or an orange if you want it to look
Zesty but it always has that same adorable lemon flavor and really soft on your mouth I love Bonas oh that’s good I’ve never tried Bonas so this year will be the year okay okay uh if we’re still in the letter B section I put in a vote
For bbom or manard and I guess thinking back to the chives where you’re suggesting plucking out the the little flowers with the Monarda flowers you want to pluck out those little flowers and then toss that in I’d say with the fruit salad I’m thinking lots of blueberries and chopped melon and it
Adds just a delicate spiciness into that which is really really nice M I think that’s a great idea I didn’t know about that one but let’s talk a little more detail about ners because we started with that at the beginning and that’s a flower you might be growing in your
Garden because it’s a great ground cover it’s nice and raised pots but it’s also you can get a climbing nestum so if you have a smaller garden and you want to do some vertical growing you can grow some of the types of nestum up the pot my very favorite one is an oldfashioned
Open pollinated variety called Alaska have you grown Alaska it’s the one with the variegated leaves I think right I know and so again back to the same Chef Andrew he showed me how in Chef school they use a single leaf I know we’re talking about the flower flers and the
Flowers are edible but he also uses a single leaf and he floats it on a soup and then puts a aerum flour on top because it’s so spicy and peppery I’m sure at the cooking school they wash them for aphids I don’t think they would
Be stuck with a a salad like you but they’re beautiful and so use the leaves which can be edible also in a salad and he did some fancy salads they call them plated salads instead of just a tossed salad so they start with a little ners
Leaf and some of them can be quite large especially of that variety Alaska put it on the bottom put some mixed greens maybe some Reds like you were talking with beets before and you were speaking about Mauna which is a lovely ruffly or even some kale leaves little finely
Ruffled leaves and then top that with a distan flour I think that would be because of the peppery flavor oh my gosh I’m so hungry now sounds good um you know I’m thinking back to well to our friend Denise shriber from Pittsburgh who wrote the book eat your roses and
She joined Emma and me here on the show I don’t know must be five years ago but I remember Denise talked about a lasagna a lasagna made with mersum flowers oh and it sounded like such a fun creative way to use those flowers well I don’t
Know if I have that many flowers I’d want to cook them in on aan but hey or in a lasagna but what layer would they replace or where would they be in well you could do as much or little as your Supply dictated yeah okay okay that
Extra protein with those bugs too eh oh exactly yeah good thing about nostrums they do have a range of colors so they come from that very pale peachy tone through to a bit more harsh orange and then almost the Imperial Indian ones are sort of a reddish brick color so there’s quite a
Range of colors a nice mix of colors to to play with I wanted to mention dayy and you can stir fry dayy buds but there’s a picture that really stands out in my mind somebody showed me a picture of a child with an open dayy Flow that had a
Scoop of ice cream in it and and that always stayed with me it was such a beautiful picture and it’s such a fun idea for an edible flower I think that sounds fantastic it’s hard to buy edible flowers because they’re perishable right it’s yeah easy for us as gardeners to go
Out and pick one day or a handful of nestum or some male zucchini flowers but it’s really hard for the the big processors to do this and so I have seen them at farmers markets but I’ve rarely seen them at the grocery store have you seen them
Commonly sold oh very rarely no they’re too perishable yeah so it is a big Advantage people say well why be a home Gardener what do you what’s your goal with that but even if you have the tiniest balcony you can certainly if it’s north facing fit in a single Bonia
And have that single flour that you contribute to your you know to your supper okay I have a couple more I wanted to squeeze in here kandula which is an annual that self seeds in our garden all the time we love it and those flowers you you pluck off the petals
Before using them and I wanted to throw out the idea you can dry them too so Emma has dried clangula petals we have a jar of them and when you do say a nice rice dish you can sprinkle on top of it once it’s cooked some of these dried
Cula petals to add a splash of color so it’s a fun easy to grow colula is often called pot merold not pot not merold it’s a different plant completely and I like how you using the Latin name there because it is one of those plants with a
Lot of common names but like you I’ve seen it used as a saffron substitutes so if you can’t afford that highly priced saffron which is just the tiny little anther of a single crocus that only blooms in the fall that’s a very small portion of a flower not even the whole
Flower but calandula is cheap easy re seeds you’re right it’s such a great substitute in rice or in if you’re making a pie it’s very good what about rose petals we will once in a while chop up some rose petals and throw those into a fruit salad sometimes
Towards the center The Petal can be a little bit more white and that portion can be a little bit bitter depending on the rose variety but rose petals are an easy one because so many people are growing roses anyway do you use those yes but not a bought one not one that
You brought home from the store because roses are quite heavily sprayed to exclude the afor mentioned bugs so I would use roses that are from a plant I’ve had in my garden for at least a year and then yeah go for it I mean what a beautiful addition to a salad to add
Some yellow rose petals or to add some white rose petals to a fruit salad with oh all of the Manny berries that are so delicious let’s let’s jump into trees and shrubs Donna and in our garden we’ve long had Elderberry the Canada Elderberry and I love it because we make
Juice out of those berries but even more fun than that is that we use those flowers so elder flower cordel Elder flour champagne some people dry them to make an elder flour tea or I’ve even heard of people making Elder flour ritters so that’s one the other common
Shrub that I’ve enjoyed eating grazing from is lilacs my parents had a lilac hedge and even as a little kid I remember plucking those little lilac flowers sucking up the nectar and if only I’d known at the time that I could eat the flower too I definitely would
Have I wanted to add in one tree that’s very common here in Toronto I don’t think it grows in your Zone but the eastern red bud tree which is covered with these beautiful pink flowers in the spring there’s also a white variety too but usually pink ones you see those are
Edible a lovely sweet flow H that’s really great I I know that people make honey out of lindens and we can grow Lyons and we can eat lyen honey but it would be pretty hard to pick the flower because it’s quite a big unit with that small Little
Flower off of it I’m glad you mentioned that because my my great aunt Anna made Linden flour tea so she would get me to pick those Linden flowers for her and then she would dry them to make tea so thank you that adds a second tree onto
Our list and and of course there’s others so we’ve just scratched the surface with these trees shrubs veggies and herbs there’s lots of edible flowers out there but I think the the key thing is if it’s something that you don’t know for sure is just do your due diligence
Research it there’s lots of books on the topic there’s lots of seed a lot of seed companies now are listing what is Ed has edible flowers and what does not so there are lots of resources out there okay that sounds fantastic I think check first then eat but definitely think
About adding some of that beauty that comes from nature right into your right into your salad soup whether it’s a piece of leaf or a whole Blossom it can really add some interest and excitement to your regular hum drum meals yeah I think as we Embrace edible gardening and food gardening then
Hopefully that spills over into our kitchens too and we get more creative and have fun cooking and I think that’s where Ed edible flowers are really fun because they allow us to do some really fun things in the kitchen I want to bring up speaking of fruit because we
Have lemon courses all the time and we offer extra workshops in that what about lemons I’ve heard that they are edible that the the flowers of lemons are edible what have you heard Steve yes so lemon flowers edible orange flowers edible and you could dry those petals
And and use them in some kind of preparation I’ve bought orange flour extract and and use that which very flavorful so yes indeed you can use those in many different ways okay that’s fantastic use your house plants use your garden plants find ways to add that bit
Of extra interest to your supper time good we’ll be back next week and next week on the podcast we are talking about raspberries we’d love it if you drop by to say hi online at Food Garden life.com we have articles about growing fruit veg using your homegrown produce also about
Growing figs and lemons in cold climate so say hi tell us the topics that would help you grow more of your own also grab our free newsletter subscribers get the subscriber only cold climate fig guide and small space food gardening Tip Sheet you can head over to my website and grab
My really cool printable PDF for a seed packet you can personalize it for each type of seeds that you save Don baller.com have a look you’re listening to the food Garden life show I’m Steph bigs and I’m Donna Baler here to help you [Applause] grow