Every year I plan the landscape of my urban garden and my favourite additions are varieties of edible flowers. The selection of edible flowers are vast in color, taste, and texture while their vibrant colours pepper the yard. These flowers not only add beauty to your landscape, but valuable nutrients as well. Furthermore, as perfect companion plants, they will naturally enhance your gardening success.
There are two types of edible flowers I plant in my yard. The first type is the obvious chefs choice, flowers from the fresh herbs I am growing. The second is an actual edible flower plant. I have laid out the different varieties below so you can begin to choose the ones you want to add to your urban garden this year because to neglect this step is a gardening crime.
Flowering Herbs
- Borage:
- This lovely herb is also known as the “starflower”. It produces lovely star shaped purple flowers which have a delicious honey and cucumber flavour profile. The leaves, stalks, and flowers are all edible. Normally used as a garnish for cocktails and desserts due to it’s sweet mild taste.
- A fantastic companion plant for strawberries. Growers often claim their berries are sweeter with the addition of this plant beside them.
- Chives:
- The chive produces lovely pink blossoms in mid June. These are fantastic in salads as they have a lovely mild onion flavour.
- A fantastic companion plant for tomatoes
- Thyme:
- Tiny white flowers adorn this herb and they are perfect additions to salads or fancy herbed butters. With a mild thyme flavour, adding them as a garnish on fresh fruit is a nice subtle flavour note.
- Known to protect cabbage and eggplant from harmful pests Thyme is a fabulous companion plant for these veggies.
- Sage:
- This herb produces a lovely purple flower and its flavour is almost reminiscent of a sage concentrate as the intensity of the sage is definitely stronger in the flower. This is perfect for using in stuffings or pastas, and a lovely way to decorate a nice root vegetable salad.
- Sage is my favourite garden herb. It loves tomatoes and tomatoes love it right back.
- Dill:
- The Dill flowers are lovely yellow, lacy, big blooms. I think these look lovely when thrown in the pickle jar along with some leaves. Dill flowers and leaves can be used in salads, dips, fermentation, and so much more.
- Dill is a wonderful garden companion plant for the good insects it attracts, eat aphids and other nasty bugs we don’t want to house. It plants well with beets.
- Rosemary:
- This herb produces a colourful array of blooms. They can vary from white, pink, purple or blue. They maintain the flavour of rosemary and make a lovely garnish on salads, meats, and pastas.
- Rosemary planted beside broccoli is mutually beneficial for both plants and they will equally thrive.
- Oregano:
- Lovely white and red flowers can be found on the leaves of oregano. Their flavour is strong and these flowers can be used in sauces and salads, or as a garnish which is how I like to use them. Fresh pasta and an oregano flower…perfection.
- This little herb will do great things for your entire garden. You can plant it anywhere EXCEPT near sage. They are enemies.
- Lavender:
- This very popular purple flower is often used in culinary dishes. It has a bit of a citrus flavour to it. I love using it in shortbread, as a decorating tool for cakes, and in jams or jellies.
- The companion plant for lavender is Kale. It also likes cabbage and broccoli. The strong lavender scent deters a lot of pests including flies and beetles.
Edible Flowers
- Bachelor’s Buttons:
- These lovely bright pink flowers are delicious in salads or in glass of iced tea as a garnish.
- Marigolds:
- These flowers come in a lot of varieties. Not only are they pretty, they are fanatic pest traps and are a gardeners favourite secret weapon. Plant these with pretty much anything in your garden as their shallow roots don’t tend to get in the way much.
- These flowers have a pepper flavour and are fabulous in salads as a punchy garnish.
- Nasturtiums:
- These flowers are fantastic in the garden. Depending on the variety you can have vine climbers, big blooms, various colors, and smaller blooms. The leaves even taste nice and peppery making equally lovely garnishes.
- Pansies:
- These flowers are proud members of the violet family. The flours can be purple, yellow, red and black. The options are vast. They grow with almost anything and are great garnishes for charcuterie and cheese boards.
- Pea shoots:
- These little white flowers are lovely in salads or garnishes for eggs on brunch menus. They also are lovely in sandwiches.
- Lavender:
- This familiar purple flower is a culinary dream. Used in everything from shortbread to lemonade finding a place for this flower on your plate is not hard.
- They grow really well with Kale and Broccoli.
