Geoff McCabe

Edible Flowers at the Farm

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Hibiscus - Edible Flower

Hibiscus – Edible Flower

Many people have wanted to know which flowers you can eat, and which are poisonous or inedible due to other reasons, such as being dry, rough or tasteless.

Edible flowers can be used for many purposes, such as decorating a plate, floating in a soup, or adding to a salad. The possibilities are endless.

Here’s a list of what we have growing now that are edible.

Banana The large red petals of the banana aren’t edible, but they’re great to be used for a decoration or even as a plate/bowl for holding a dish, as can be done with banana leaves too.

Basil The long basil flowers are usually picked off the plant before they seed, which encourages more growth in the savory leaves. They can be used for decoration, or put into a food processor to make basil pesto.

Borage: A sweet blue/purple star-shaped flower that grows well and easily here. Very pretty and around the size of a quarter.

Calendula: Medium sized orange flowers around 1-2″ in diameter.

Fennel: All parts of the Fennel plant are edible, but the flowers have a truly wonderful use. If you have enough of them, you can harvest the pollen from them, which is intensely and wonderfully fragrant, a rarely used delicacy. It is said to “transform the ordinary to the extraordinary.”

Hibiscus: Large flowers in various colors: red, pink, fuchsia, red, yellow, orange. They can be cut into strips to decorate a dish, or put whole on a plate. They can also be used to make hibiscus tea.

Moringa: Irregular, sweet white flowers with a tiny bit of spicy kick to them.

Squash/Zucchini: Many people are surprised to find out that not only are squash and zucchini flowers edible, but they are delicious! A classic Italian way to prepare them is to stuff them with rice and herbs, or whatever you want, and fry them in olive oil.