One of the loveliest things about growing your own veg is drifting down to your garden with a bowl and picking a fat crop of juicy salad leaves every morning. There are few greater supermarket rip-offs than those bags of salad leaves: insipid, watery things which last for all of a day, and all for £2.50. But in your garden you can pick fiery rocket (as the summer progresses, the leaves grow hotter and hotter), lettuces, dandelions, coriander, spinach, chard and…flowers.
I think I rather surprised my dinner guests last night when I plonked a bowl of nasturtium flowers on the table. The men told me very pointedly that I had to pay them before they ate flowers, and the women nibbled gingerly at the flame-coloured petals. Eating flowers sounds a little silly, but it isn’t anything unusual. We gobble broccoli and cauliflower (the clue is in the name) without a second thought, and some flowers really do taste beautiful. Nasturtium blooms have the same peppery taste as their leaves, allium flowers taste stronger than their foliage, and daylilies work perfectly in stir fries.
If you’re growing nasturtiums predominantly for their flowers, do not add too much organic matter to the soil. Too much nitrogen-rich manure will encourage fat, leafy plants at the expense of a flush of flowers.
Here’s a list of other edible flowers:
Bergamot
Borage
Chervil
Cornflower
Courgette (use male flowers only)
Lavender
Lilac
Rosemary
Roses
Sage
Sunflower (cook unopened flowerheads for a few minutes in butter)
Violets
