Edible Plants

With a sweet and gentle fragrance flowers have been used for centuries in cooking and perfumes as well as medicinal home-remedies.

The best place to start with edible plants are in your own backyard. An overwhelming majority of those ‘common weeds’ have both edible and medicinal qualities such as clover, dandelion and mints they are all easy to identify and have few poisonous ‘look-a-likes’. Flowers that easily grow in most soil types that also fit into the category of edible are:

Calendula

The leaves when eaten raw are very rich in vitamins and are similar to dandelion in nutritional value. The dried petals have a more concentrated flavour and are used as a seasoning in soups and cakes.

Hollyhocks

Eat the young leaves raw or cooked, with a mild flavour it can be also chopped up finely and eaten in salads. A nutritious starch can also be obtained from the root.

Poppy (Hungarian Blue)

Lavender blue flowers that contain seeds that are a bakers delight to be used in breads, muffins and cakes.

Chamomile

A fragrant herb used as a soothing tea and as a companion plant to enhance the growth of onions and cucumbers.

Pansies & Violas

The flowers of these two plants have long been used in cooking and perfumes.

Amaranth

Burgundy plumes atop striking foliage it has seeds that are very high in protein and other nutrients. It can be cooked liked rice and the very young leaves are great for salads or steamed.

Agastache

This fragrant flower attracts bees and butterflies to your garden. It is coloured lavender to a rich purple, its leaves are strongly aromatic with a flavour that is a cross between sage and mint.

Your garden changes with the seasons and so should the way you view it. Not only is it beautiful but it is also life enhancing.