There are many edible flowers you can grow as part of your garden. Many of them work for container growing, as well as in garden beds, and some can work for indoor hydroponic systems or indoor pots too. Edible flowers are an amazing way to add color to your garden, as well as your plate. They are fun for kids, and great in salads, on cakes, on cookies, and can help make a garden kid, and pet, safe.
Flowers are awesome to include in your garden, and many flowers make good companion plants. They also add visual beauty to the garden, and can help attract pollinators. There are many edible flowers available to plant and grow, and some edible flowers that you may not think of. One of the most versatile is sunflowers, which can be eaten as seeds, micro-greens, sprouts, and even the flower buds,ย and that’s just one potential edible flower for your garden! There are dozens more.
Flowers make a great addition to the child’s garden as well. Or, you can plan edible flowers for a pollinator garden, or hummingbird garden. If you’re competing with HOA regulations, or deer, you may be more limited on the edible flowers you can grow without a fenced back yard. But there’s always lavender, calendula, and some salvia family plants that are potential candidates for less edible-friendly, but still edible, landscaping options.
Easiest Edible Flowers to Grow:
Pansies, or viola family, are one of the easiest edible blossoms to add to your garden. They come in a range of colors, and sizes. They are great for kid friendly gardens, as part of edible landscaping, or just as part of your normal landscaping. Pansies, and their smaller “Johnny Jump Up” cousins, can be grown from seed, or you can get established seedlings from a gardening store. Violets are also in the same family, and are also edible.
Nasturtiums are a fun companion plant that is sometimes used to help attract beneficial insects to the garden. Nasturtium blossoms have a spicy, peppery taste that goes well in salads, compound butter, with cheese, or just on it’s own. They also come in a range of yellow and orange colors, and the vine-ing tendency makes these a great space filler, hanging basket candidate, and all-around fun flower to grow. Also, the seeds are large which makes them easy for small hands to plant, if you’re starting from seed.
Calendula petals are edible and traditionally used as a natural food colorant for yellow tones. The petals can add a bright hint to salads, without adding any distinguishing flavors. Calendula, botanical name calendula officinalis, is also a good herbal plant, with a range of beneficial uses for skin care and more. Calendula is well worth adding to any garden as a companion plant, or use it in connection with marigolds for borders and decorative edging. Another name for calendula is “pot marigold” and it works well in landscape design.
Borage is a vigorous herb with blue or purple flowers. The flowers have a slight cucumber taste to them, and they are often used as a garnish or to add a pop of color to a salad or other dish. Borage is a beneficial herb, and is very popular with pollinating insects. It also has other herbal uses, making it a good garden plant to include in your landscaping.
Mint is another fast growing and vigorous herb, while mint leaves are most commonly used for cooking, teas, and herbal uses, the small mint flowers can also be added to dishes and are edible. I like using mint in desserts, and as a flavorful and sweet herb in tea blends, especially with lavender and chamomile. Lemon balm is another mint-family plant whose flowers and leaves are edible too.
Edible flowers can also often be foraged. Dandelion is an entirely edible plant, and the brilliant yellow flowers are great for adding sparkle to salads, or for use in mead and wine. Learn how to use the dandelion here.
Advanced Edible Flowers to Grow:
These flowers and plants can be a bit more challenging to grow, depending on your zone or location. And sometimes certain plants just seem temperamental to certain gardeners.
One surprising flower that has edible parts is the saffron crocus. The saffron spice is the stamens of the saffron crocus, a fall blossoming crocus. It can be grown in North America, and will produce some flowers the first season it’s planted. After it’s bloomed, and you’ve harvested the blooms, you can let the leaves grow freely until they naturally die back. This helps the bulbs get established, and increases your chances for successful bulb division and self-propagation of the saffron crocus.
Lavender flowers are used in many herbal preparations, they are also edible and can be delicious. I enjoy infusing fresh lavender flowers into honey. I also use lavender blossoms with chamomile and mint for teas.
Rose blossoms are edible as well, since this is a bush and a perennial plant, it requires more garden space. However, roses like the apothecary rose, or wild rose, are edible and taste delicious. Rose petals make great jam, jelly, and rose infused honey. They also add some beautiful pink tones to many dishes, and drinks. Rose and lavender paired make a great calming tea too.
Butterfly Pea, this plant is different than sweet pea. Sweet peas are grown for their scent, and they are not edible. Butterfly Pea is grown for it’s color-rich flowers and they are edible, though not very flavorful. This tropical pea family plant can be grown in the home garden, but may need frost protection. This flower is fun for summer lemonades since it color changes when an acid is added to the butterfly pea flower tea.
Yarrow, this medicinal tasting flower is edible, though not typically consumed in large amounts. It is more of a tea herb, or general medicinal herb. However, due to it’s strong flavor, it is great as part of deer resistant landscapes, and is taste-safe for toddlers and pets. It can be used for lemonade like teas, and for various herbal uses like this one here.
Elderflower, the lacy flowers of the elder plant are a delicious, and delectable floral-tasting treat. Not only are elder flowers awesome pollinator attractors, and the berries have numerous herbal and anti-oxidant food uses too, but the flowers are edible. They make amazing mead, and also can be used in any other way you’d use a strongly floral edible flower.
Unusual Yummy Flowers:
There are numerous flowers that you can eat, that aren’t your typical decorative flower. First up, Sunflowers. They are super easy to grow, and you can eat the seeds, young shoots as microgreens, seeds as sprouts, AND you can eat the young flower buds! This is a super-market flower for delicious and yummy flowers.
Also, did you know that artichokes are actually a flower too? As are technically cauliflower and broccoli, we just harvest them in a head stage, before the head turns into the flower stalk.
Squash blossoms are another unexpected edible flower. If your squash plants are producing a lot of early season male flowers, you can harvest those and use them for stuffed squash blossoms, or another edible dish.
Many of our herbs have small, edible, flowers. Rosemary oregano, basil, and thyme both come to mind. They have edible flowers, but the flowers are tiny and not often used in cooking or for garnishes. Anise hyssop and licorice are also similar.
A personal favorite is bee balm, or monarda. The flowers are bright, and mild flavored. They work great with flower cookies. They are also very attractive to bees, especially bumble bees, and humming birds.
Chives are a delicious member of the allium family, and the flowers are edible. Chive blossoms give a spicy kick to salads, and work great in compound butter, as an addition to garlic butter, and as part of cream cheese spreads or logs. The bright purple flowers are quite unique.
An unusual flower that is edible in moderation is the day lily. The flowers can be used in a green salad, or sauted while still semi-closed. They taste similar to asparagus and green peas, so may go well in stir-fry. Avoid eating other lilies, just daylilies.
Lilac flowers are also edible, the only part of the lilac that is. They can be used for a delicious floral syrup, or used for infused honey and sugars. They have a light flavor, that is semi-sweet on it’s own. I like using lilac in the same way as I use rose or lavender blossoms and petals.
Peony flowers are also edible, and the petals are often large and brightly colored. These are fun to crystalize, and use for cake decorating, cupcake decorating and more. They have a gentle flavor, fairly mild, and the color of the blossoms makes them good candidates for floral syrups and jelly where the color is the most important aspect.
Cautions when Eating Flowers:
If you’re buying flower starts from a greenhouse or from garden centers, I would wait at least two to three weeks after planting them in your home garden before beginning to eat the flowers. This lets any residual pesticides and chemicals from the plant’s early growing conditions wash off, and wear off, before you consume them.
How to Use Edible Flowers:
You can freeze petals or whole flowers in ice-cubes and use in floral lemonades. Make a simple syrup from lavender, or rose, or another very familiar flower and use that as part of the base for your floral lemonade, then garnish with flower ice cubes.
Compound butter or a cheese log served with crackers as a light, summer, lunch is also a great way to enjoy some of your flowers. Adjust one of these recipe for your available flowers and enjoy.
Flowers like those for oregano, chives, basil, and other garden herbs can be used in your soups and sauces. Simply chop fine, as you would the herb itself, and include it in your dish.
You can learn more about edible flowers, and our lovely edible herbs through our DIY Herb of the Month club. Dive deep into each individual herb, like lavender, oregano, sage, basil, and many, many, more.
Get to know your herbal allies by studying one herb at a time
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