Here Are Just a Few of My Favorite Edible Flowers to Grow
Growing and harvesting edible flowers is a such a simple but fun way to add lots of color and character to your favorite dishes, desserts, and even co*cktails.
We often judge flowers on their appearance, but they actually have a lot going on inside those pretty little petals, too. You know how we're supposed to eat fruits and veggies in a rainbow of colors so we can fill up on lots of antioxidants and essential nutrients? Well, guess what? Flowers count! They're a great natural source of antioxidants.
Even if you're not interested in growing these flowers for your health, consider growing them for the overall health of your garden. Flowers attract bees and butterflies, bring in lots of other beneficial insects, and even help you deal with pests. Can you say win win win?
Plus, some of them are actually pretty delicious!
Let's look at some of my favorite edible flowers to grow, and then I'll tell you about some plants that are typically grown for their other plant parts but that also produce really yummy flowers.
Edible Flowers List to Grow in Your Kitchen Garden
Everyone knows lavender is edible, but I bet some of these might surprise you! Here are just a few of my favorite edible flowers we can all grow in our gardens:
- lavender
- nasturtiums
- pansies and violas
- pineapple sage
- snapdragons
- yarrow
- zinnias
There are also many flowering herbs (anise hyssop, calendula, chamomile, and echinacea, just to name a few) that are often used to make teas and salves.
Let's look at each of these edible flower options.
Lavender Produces Great Edible Flowers for Cakes
English lavender is often consider the best type of lavender to grow for tea and culinary uses thanks to its nice fragrance, but honestly, you can't go wrong with French lavender or Spanish lavender either.
Once lavender plants are established, they thrive on neglect. Learn more about growing your own lavender.
Lavender flowers can be harvested (preferably in the early morning when the oils in the leaves and flowers are most concentrated) and used fresh or dried. I'm not much of a baker, so I mostly use lavender for a soothing tea, but if you like making cakes, lavender flowers work really well with citrus.
Nasturtiums Are Delicious Edible Flowers for Salads
Nasturtiums blossoms are not only gorgeous (they look like hibiscus flowers, but they're much easier to grow), they're also delicious. They have a sweet, peppery flavor that works great in salads. You can also make nasturtium flower-infused vinegar by pouring some white wine vinegar over the blooms and leaving the concoction to infuse for a couple weeks. This is a great way to add lots of lutein and vitamin C into your diet!
Plus, bees and hummingbirds both go wild over nasturtiums.
Pansies and Violas Top Any Edible Flowers List
Both pansies and violas add such lovely bright pops of colors that can instantly de-gloom any sad-looking salad bowl. They also look beautiful on a butter board (is that still a thing?) or even just on some toast with a little cream cheese. I mean, these just make everything look and feel gourmet, right?
I grow these in as many different color combos as I can—oranges, purples, reds, blues—and love the contrast with their cheerful yellow centers. I'm a pretty big sucker for a rainbow, you know?
I had some persistent pansies survive hard frosts here in Nashville, but they really thrive when temps are between 40 and 70 degrees.
Pineapple Sage Has the Most Delicious Nectar Inside
The entire pineapple sage plant is edible—that includes the leaves, and yes, of course, the flowers. Not only do these little funnels have a great honeysuckle-like smell, they also taste incredible. If you've ever eaten nectar from honeysuckle, then you know how it's done. Just pinch the flower at its base, pull out the little string, and drink up!
You can—and should—grow a ton of pineapple sage in a pollinator garden. By the end of your first summer, the plant will be gigantic—just wait!
Snapdragons Bring Beauty to Your Garden and Your Meals
I'm betting this edible flower comes as a surprise. Snapdragon blossoms have a... unique flavor (okay, I'll admit they're a little bitter for something so gorgeous). The great thing about harvesting snapdragons, whether that's for edible decor or for cut flowers, is the more you cut, the more they grow! They just love to keep on producing. That's the best kind of plant to have, right?
Snapdragons are so incredibly beautiful in all of their many colors, and now you can choose between varieties that grow tall and newer varieties that trail. They bloom when the weather is on the chillier side and might stop producing new flowers when the weather warms too much.
Yarrow Makes a Beautiful Cut Flower
Another unexpected edible flower is yarrow. I love to grow this one in my pollinator garden, and the entire plant is edible. The pretty yellow flowers are great for the bees, so I avoid harvesting too many of them at one time. I consider them primarily bee food, not me food, you know?
But I do love to cut the occasional blooms and bring them indoors for a fresh little bouquet. When I have a ton of stems, I like to make dried herb wreaths with them. Yarrow makes a gorgeous cut flower, it preserves so well, and it's edible. I mean, could you have a more perfect plant? I don't think so.
Zinnias Make a Beautiful End to Our Edible Flowers List
Zinnias are 100 percent edible, though they are a bit bitter for my taste. I love to use the beautiful, brightly colored blooms as garnishes on charcuterie boards or desserts. Thanks to their long stems, they also make perfect cut flowers. If you leave them in your garden, the bees, butterflies, and beneficial wasps will thank you.
Zinnias are incredibly easy to start from seed and will grow under so many conditions, including pretty extreme neglect. Learnhow to grow zinnias from seed.
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Fruits and Vegetables That Produce Edible Flowers
A lot of times when we're growing food, we don't think about the fact that we're also growing flowers. There are so many plants that we grow for their other parts—their leaves, their roots, or their fruit—that also produce edible flowers. Those plants include:
- arugula
- chives
- peas
- radishes
- strawberries
Arugula Flowers Are Edible
The flowers of most leafy greens are edible, but arugula flowers, with their dainty white petals, are particularly pretty.
I love tossing arugula flowers on top of salads or using them as a garnish. They smell just like arugula, and flavor wise, they're pretty peppery.
Even if you don't want to eat arugula flowers, I recommend letting arugula go to seed in your garden. You can save your own seeds for next year. I love the fact that beautiful flowers also mean free plants in the future.
Chive Blossoms Are Edible
Chive blossoms are, to me, one of the most beautiful flowers period. You can also enjoy the entire blossom or break it up and sprinkle it into your dishes for a vibrant oniony flavor. I love to make chive blossom vinegar.
To harvest chive blossoms, make sure to cut all the way down at the base of the stem. You'll notice flowering stems are much firmer than leafy stems. That gives each chive blossom a cut-flower-like quality, which is awesome.
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Pea Flowers Are Edible
I typically don't harvest them because I want them to do their magic and turn into fruit, but pea blossoms are edible and so pretty. The leaves and pea shoots of the pea plant are also edible and add great texture in stir fries.
I just want to clarify that I'm talking about the flowers of edible plants like sugar snap peas and garden peas. Don't try to eat ornamental sweet peas, okay?
Radish Flowers Are Edible
Radish flowers are perfectly edible and surprisingly beautiful. Like arugula flowers, these purple and white flowers are formed when the radish plant bolts, or goes to seed. You'll no longer want to eat the radish root at this point. It'll have grown way too bitter and starchy, but the flowers are, again, still edible.
You might think it’s these flowers that produce the radish seeds. The plant actually forms little seed pods along the stem instead. Fun fact: these radish seed pods are also edible while they're green and have the same peppery flavor and crisp texture of a radish picked at the optimal time. (Read more about where radish seeds come from.)
Strawberry Flowers Are Edible
Those delicate little strawberry flowers are both pretty and edible!
Why would you eat the flowers, though, if you're after the strawberries?
Strawberry plants are perennials, which means they need a little time after they're planted to get established in your garden. This is my first year growing strawberries, so I actually don't want my plants to produce a ton of fruit yet. I want them instead to focus on growing good roots and settling in. Then, they'll be able to produce lots of fruit next year. That's why it's actually better to pinch off at least some of the flowers that first year.
I wish I could say strawberry flowers taste like strawberries. They're actually a little on the bitter side. I'd say they're best for decoration, especially the pink flowers from hybrid plants.
Grow Your Own Edible Flowers
These are just a few of the edible flowers that you can grow in your kitchen garden to add lots of beauty and color to your meals—and some of them are actually pretty delicious. So cheers to flowers that we can eat! I hope this inspires you to grow a lot more edible flowers in your garden this season.
