Edible flowers showcase a hidden side of our gardens and give us the chance to unlock an array of flavours and textures, all while creating lots of food for wildlife to enjoy, too. For someone who loves food and has boundless culinary curiosity, these plants provide some incredible and unusual surprises.
You'll be familiar with many of the classic edible flowers - nasturtiums for their watercress-like flavour, borage for its cucumber hit, and the pretty petals of calendula, cornflower and the ever-popular viola. Building on last month's advice, where we explored some of the amazing flavours harnessed from herbs, this month we'll delve deep into the most popular and sought-after flowers on the farm - edible blooms that are more than just pretty petals on a plate, they also champion a range of seasonal flavours and textures.
Classic edible flowers
Many of the flowers you may already be growing can be used in meals. Here, we share some of the most popular and how to best use them
Sunflowers (Helianthus annuus)
Sunflowers have a wonderful nutty flavour. They make up a huge part of our floral salad and in everyday dishes we use them as we would any salad leafy green. Pull petals away from the flowerheads you want to eat and cut back the flowering stems throughout the season to encourage them to keep producing blooms. This is an annual plant that we grow year on year, by collecting and saving their seeds - although we find the birds always beat us to them, which is no bad thing. 'Autumn Beauty' is our favourite mix for a wide range of colours. Best for: salads
Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus)
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2023 من BBC Gardeners World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة May 2023 من BBC Gardeners World.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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July is an island floating between the joy of June and the slightly fatigued month of August. It's a grown-up month: the year has shrugged off its adolescent exuberances, the weather is (hopefully) warm enough for ice cream to be one of your five a day, the sea should be swimmable without (too much) danger of hypothermia and thoughts will be of holiday shenanigans and family barbecues. School's out this month, the next tranche of glorious summer colour is washing across our borders and it's my birthday. Lots of reasons to give three rousing cheers for July!
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