Happy Earth Day gardening friends!
What a lovely mild spring day today for Earth Day. A wonderful way to celebrate Earth Day is to plant flowers. Do you know that many flowers in the garden are not only beautiful, some of them are also edible. Edible flowers can add color, fragrance, and taste sensation to your culinary creations. Some edible flowers can be found on annuals, perennials, herbs, vegetables, shrubs, and even trees!
For your safety, please note NOT ALL FLOWERS ARE EDIBLE. Never eat any flower you cannot ID with certainty. Some edible flowers also have leaves, roots or fruits that are edible. However, many edible flowers are the only part of the plant that is edible and other parts are poisonous.
Grow your own edible flowers with organic methods from seeds or organic starts. If you buy your edible flower starts from a retail nursery or garden center confirm they grown as edible flowers, this should be explicitly stated on their tag. This is a word of caution because wholesale nurseries grow their edible and ornamental plants differently, using a wide varieties of treatments that are not always safe for edible consumption.
Never eat flowers purchased from a florist. Cut flowers are grown very differently from edible plants and florists often treat cut flowers with chemicals to extend their vase life.
Here are a few of my favorite annual edible flowers, all easy to grow from seeds, and many are available as edible flower plants from local nurseries like Portland Nursery, Garden Fever, and at New Seasons Market:
Bachelor Buttons Centaurea cyanus
Basil Ocimum basilicum
Calendula Calendula officinalis
Chamomile (German) Matricaria recutita
Dill Anethum graveolens
Marigold ('Tangerine Gem' & 'Lemon Gem') Tagetes spp.
Nasturtium Trapaeolum majus
Pansy, Violas, Johnny Jump-Ups Viola spp.
For great information on edible flower gardening and recipes please join me at one of these upcoming class:
Saturday April 27 Culinary Herb & Edible Flower Gardening at Mt Hood Community College
Saturday May 11 Culinary Herb & Edible Flower Gardening at Portland Community College
Sunday June 2 Edible Flower Gardening at Portland Nursery
And stayed tuned for this summer's release of my first book The Gardening Goddess Guide to Edible Gardening in Portland with an entire chapter on edible flower gardening.
Happy Gardening!
Jolie
