Edible Flowers: Flowers You Can Eat (AND how to use them)
Edible Flowers for Your Garden
Bee balm (bergamot) is an edible flower that’s a good fit for a perennial border.
When I taught at a college with a farm-to-table horticulture and culinary program, the chef asked us to harvest small zucchinis with the flower still attached at the end. A pedestrian ingredient elevated to gourmet.
Yet they often fly under the radar. You can fit edible flowers into a vegetable garden, herb garden, edible landscape, and beyond. You might have some growing there already.
Once they’re on your radar, you’ll see them everywhere.
If you’re wondering what flowers you can eat, keep reading. This post explains where you can grow them, lists easy-to-grow edible flowers, and has ideas for creative ways of using them.
How to Grow Edible Flowers
Use bachelor’s buttons petals to decorate a cake, or dried in a tea.
Because edible flowers grow on a very wide range of plants, there’s no one-size-fits-all growing advice. Many are sun loving. Some tolerate some shade. While many are annuals, there are shrubs and trees too.
Success growing edible flowers is a matter of selecting the right plant for the right growing conditions.
Some of my favourite edible flowers are the ones that self-seed in my garden, meaning they come back year after year without me having to plant them. I like gardening that way.
NOTE: Not all flowers are edible. So don’t eat it if you’re not certain it’s edible. Start with small amounts if it’s the first time you’re eating a flower. As with any food, some people can have sensitivities.
Calendula (pot marigold) self-seeds in my garden. I let a “hedge” of calendula frame one of my potager beds.
Where to Grow Edible Flowers
Edible Flowers in the Vegetable Garden
There are lots of edible flowers to be found in a vegetable garden.
Here are some of my favourites.
Arugula flowers are edible and have a peppery taste similar to the leaves.
Arugula. Like the leaves, these small flowers are peppery. They’re nice atop a salad or a savoury soup.
Broccoli. We grow broccoli to harvest before the flowers open…but if your broccoli beats you to the punch and the flowers open, you’ll have cheery yellow flowers to toss into a salad or use as a garnish.
Fennel. Clusters of small, bright yellow flowers have a delicate anise flavour. I’ve seen a chef tap fennel flowers over a white plate to decorate it with the brightly coloured pollen. Along with Florence fennel, there’s bronze fennel, a short-lived perennial in my garden zone (and an invasive in others…). Find out more about bronze fennel and other edible perennials.
Pea. Flowers taste like…peas. As well as the flowers, you can also eat young shoots and tendrils. Caution: Flowers of peas we grow as a vegetable (Pisum sativum) are edible; flowers of sweet pea (Lathyrus odoratus), grown as a cut flower, are poisonous.
This squash flower is calling out for a wedge of cheese, some batter, and a bath in the deep fryer!
Runner bean. Along with edible flowers, runner bean flowers have long enough stems to make excellent cut flowers. In my garden, they’re a magnet for hummingbirds too! Runner beans are also a top crop for vertical gardening: Find out more about vertical gardening.
Squash. Slightly sweet taste. Stuff whole flowers with a wedge of cheese and batter and deep fry. Or, slice and serve atop a bowl of soup for a dash of bright yellow or throw into a stir fry just before serving.
All of these veggies can thrive in container gardens. I teach people how to grow great container vegetable gardens in my this masterclass.
Edible Flowers in a Potager or Kitchen Garden
I like to think of potager gardens as grazing gardens: Instead of large quantities of each crop for preserving, we’re growing smaller quantities to pick and eat fresh on an ongoing basis. I like a grazing garden with lots of annual flowers in it for cutting…and eating.
Bachelor’s Buttons. Flowers come in blue, pink, and white. Eat fresh, or dry to add colour to your home-made tea blends. Or sprinkle some petals over the bowl of whipping cream you’re putting out for dessert.
Calendula petals are a homegrown saffron substitute, great for colouring rice.
Calendula. Great for colour, though not a lot of flavour. Pluck off the petals to add to salads or dress up a plate. Use dried petals to add colour to rice dishes—a homegrown saffron substitute.
Rose. Pluck some rose petals to chop and add to a fruit salad. The lower, white portion of the petal can be bitter, so before using them, do a taste test—and remove the white portion if needed. Edible flower expert Denise Schreiber recommends rose-petal ice cream.
Sunflower. Use these brightly coloured and mildly bitter petals as a cheerful garnish.
Edible Flowers for Containers and Container Gardens
You can eat the whole nasturtium flower. It has a peppery taste, like the leaves.
Many well-known edible flowers are grown as annuals, and many are well suited to growing in containers.
Here are a couple of my favourites.
Begonia. Tuberous begonia petals have a citrusy taste and a firm texture.
Nasturtium. Unlike some flowers, where you must first remove petals from a corky core, you can pop a whole nasturtium flower into your mouth. Like the leaves, the flowers have a peppery flavour. (See below…rinsing before eating can be a good idea!)
Edible Flowers for an Edible Landscape
Here are ideas for perennials, shrubs, and trees with flowers you can eat for an edible landscape.
Apple blossoms have a floral flavour.
Apple. These blossoms have a floral flavour.
Bee Balm. A.k.a. monarda, pluck these slightly spicy petals to dry for tea or use fresh tossed into a fruit salad.
Daylily. Use the flower bud in stir fries instead of snap peas. Dice the flowers to throw into frittatas and pancakes. Or…what about an open flower to hold a scoop of ice cream—instead of an ice cream cone!
Elderberry. Use these sweet-smelling flowers fresh in fritters. Dry them for tea. Or to make cordial or elderflower champagne. Don’t graze on raw elderflower—this is a flower that should first be processed.
Redbud flowers taste sweet.
Lilac. Sweet, with a little drop of nectar in the throat. When I was a kid we’d pluck these from my parents’ hedge and suck on them to extract the sweet nectar.
Linden. Dried linden flowers make a lovely tea. My Aunt Anna had me pick them for her from the lindens that lined the front of her apartment building.
Eastern Redbud. Sweet little pink flowers that are out early in the season.
Create Your Own Unique Edible Landscape
That fits for your yard, and your style!
Edible Flowers in a Herb Garden
Basil. The flowers taste like the leaves. I pluck off these wee flowers to sprinkle over a salad or a bowl of tomato soup.
Borage flowers taste a bit like cucumber.
Borage. The sky-blue colour of borage flowers is a visual delight in the garden. Float these cucumber-flavoured flowers in a pitcher of water. This is a plant that reliably self-seeds in my garden.
Chive. Pull apart the flower heads and then sprinkle these onion-flavoured flowers over a curry!
Cilantro. This herb always flowers more quickly than I want…and as it flowers, it stops growing new leaves. But all is not lost, because the flowers, too, are edible.
Dill. Like fennel, these heads of small, yellow flowers are edible. I use a whole dill stem with leaves and flowers when I make a crock of dill pickles.
Garlic Chive. Use in the same way you do chive flowers. They look nice when you float them in a bowl of water.
Lavender. Float lavender flowers in a summery drink. One of the most unusual—and delightful—ice creams I ever had was a lavender-flower ice cream.
Lemon flowers have a very sweet smell and taste.
Lemon. I wasn’t sure where to put lemon in this post, so I’ve included it with herbs, since the leaves are used much like bay leaves. The flowers have a sweet smell and taste. Dot them on the thick whipped cream you spread over a summery fruit flan. Find out how to cook with lemon leaves.
Here’s a course about how to grow lemons in a cold climate.
Lemon Balm. The flowers have the same lemony taste and smell as the leaves. Eat as many flowers as you can, because this is one plant that’s quite naughty when it comes to self-seeding everywhere.
Mint. Shunned by many gardeners for its aggressive ways, mint flowers are a nice touch with something sweet…I’m thinking blueberry compote. (If you’re worried about mint taking over your garden, just grow it in a pot. That’s what we did when my daughter came home with 19 types of mint.)
Oregano. I love oregano with anything tomato. Or, how about a herb butter dotted with oregano flowers.
Rosemary. Like the leaves, the beautiful blue flowers have a resinous, unmistakable taste.
Edible Flowers…in the Lawn!
Chamomile. Apple-like smell. Use dried for tea, or fresh to adorn a plate. This herb is quite tolerant of being shorn like a sheep, making a chamomile lawn an unusual option.
Dandelion. I don’t know many gardeners who set out to grow dandelions, but they usually invite themselves to your lawn anyway. I harvest dandelion leaves and flowers from my lawn every spring. Pick when young, as they become more bitter when older. Pluck the petals from the centre of the flower before using.
Thyme. Like chamomile, here’s another herb that’s useful to create a lawn. When choosing a thyme variety for your edible-flower lawn, keep in mind that some types of thyme are low and creeping, while others are more upright and woody, making them less suited to using for a lawn.
Sweet Woodruff. The small, white flowers combine sweetness and vanilla. I also love the glossy, dark green leaves.
How to Harvest Edible Flowers
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When to Pick Edible Flowers
Pick flowers as close to when you’ll use them as possible for the best colour and flavour.
Storing Edible Flowers
Store wrapped in damp paper towel, in a sealed plastic bag in the fridge. The damp paper towel keeps the humidity high, without the flowers actually sitting in water.
Cleaning Edible Flowers
When flowers have an open structure, you can quickly spot any uninvited guests.
But if a flower has hiding spots, do give it a good rinse—or even a soak.
(I say this because once made a salad with fresh nasturtium flowers. As soon as I dressed the salad, an army of aphids marched out of those flowers. I think I ate the salad anyway…having bragged about it to my colleagues. A bit of protein...)
Tip: Edible Flowers That I Wouldn’t Eat
I don’t eat cut flowers from the store. Who knows what’s been used on them. Same with plants from the garden centre. Come to think of it, flowers from the roadside too.
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