Edible flowers and Wildflowers

As the spring finishes up, I hope some of you were able to go out there and enjoy all those lovely wild or edible flowers. I have come to learn the I really prefer wild flowers over traditionally appreciated flowers. I grow some interesting flowers, but some I go out and speak to every morning. They seem to return the favor with a plethora of colors and new blooms.

I grow California Poppies because I miss my southern California background. I have also started growing the elusive Green Wizard and Big Blue Sea Holly. Last year these flowers were pretty unsuccessful. I didn't understand when to plant them and what they needed, but all of these flowers prefer to be ignored and have less than ideal soil I am hoping to use these coneflowers as honey bee and butterfly attractors. Did I mention that these can be dried and used for showy flower arrangements? Sadly, the poppies only last a few days until another one comes out and they are very fussy on being cut or transplanted.

                  

As for edible flowers happening in my garden this year, I finally had some sage and lavender come out. Surprisingly, the sage was the show of the garden and the lavender was almost unnoticed next to it. If you haven't smelled or eaten these flowers then you must go out and do it next spring. There is a reason why the bee's are absolutely drunk on their smell and nectar.

Just at the right moment, my awesome, yet avid gardening neighbors had a BBQ and asked me to provide the salad. I provided it in my gigantic African, hand carved bowl which I do not get to use very often be sure of its sheer gigantic size. The salad greens were Heirloom butter lettuce, Red oak lettuce, radish greens and the radish itself, arugula and dandelion greens, and some chopped baby borage leaves, chives and mint. Yes, I grow all of this and it barely made a dent in my lettuce supply.

What a mix...I was thinking, crazy springtime fun in your mouth kind of salad. I topped that off with a bunch of culinary purple sage flowers, lemon thyme flowers and chive flowers. The neighbors added some fresh spinach. It was all I had hoped for, but I fear that maybe it was a bit s
cary for your general BBQ attendee. I mean, who brings salad to a BBQ anyways?!

Later that week a good friend of mine gave me some 
nasturtium flowers which she had purchased at the farmers market. I threw that into my boring work salads for the week and shared them with my co-workers. Yum! I am now planting Canary nasturtium vines so I can eat flowers whenever I want. These annuals are low maintenance and do all sorts of magical things in your garden.

I figure, why not make your flowers both attractive to pollinators, repel/ and or attract bugs away from you squash, and they taste like natures candy too?! Yes, I do have a plant problem. It's become obvious.

Don't even get me started on the vitamin contents and healing and preventative treatments that these flowers can have. I just read the other day that there is a study that believes that for men, eating pollen from flowers can reduce the chance of prostate cancer by 65%. Men, EAT THOSE FLOWERS TOO!