lettuce 'Lolla Rossa.' In the middle is a cluster of tulips, and the front row was planted with bunching onions, purple violas, and more English daisies.
Over the years I have noticed that the cool-weather edible flowers are the savory ones that are great for salads, appetizers, and garnishes for winter and spring meals. The sweet flowers on roses, lavender, honeysuckle, and scented geraniums all bloom in warm weather. That winter I was able to harvest pansies, violas, Johnny-jumpups, and calendulas—all great for salads and garnishes—from early winter through late spring. Our frosts knocked out my nasturtiums, so I replanted them in early spring. Soon the tulips, English daisies, mizuna, and the arugula came into their glory. I could now make an even greater range of appetizers and butters and fancier salads. In the middle of spring the nasturtiums kicked in and the strawberries started to flower (and kept going through the summer). In late spring the chives came into bloom, the English daisies were starting to dwindle, and the mizuna went to seed and were pulled out. A few weeks later I needed to pull out most of the plants in order to plant summer vegetables. If I had the space to allow most of the edible flower plants to go to seed (as I do some years), the nasturtiums, arugula, Johnny-jump-ups, calendulas, and mizuna would have reseeded themselves and the next fall very little planting would have been needed to renew the beds (the strawberries, chives, and English daisies are perennials).
My little annual edible flower garden (left) in early spring produced tulips, violas, mustard flowers, and a few English daisies. A few weeks later, the same garden was in full swing (above) and the violas and nasturtiums were exuberant, growing in among each other, as were the chives, pansies, and calendulas.
I planted another edible flower garden off my back patio (see page 11). It had a completely different color scheme: burgundy pansies, pink dianthus, light yellow 'Stella de Oro' dwarf daylilies, primrose yellow nasturtiums, Alpine strawberries, baby-pink roses, and variegated society garlic. Probably the most dramatic and fun edible flower garden I ever created was one planted with only nasturtiums—ten different varieties, to be exact (see page 12). It was eye-opening to see how many different varieties there were. Some were double, others were bicolored, and still others had green and white foliage. Of course, it produced a "gazillion" nasturtiums, and everyone who visited left with a big enough bouquet to cook with for a week.
Many edible flowers will reseed themselves like crazy. This little corner of my garden (below) grows by itself. Every spring it is completely filled with Johnny-jump-ups, nasturtiums, mache, and watercress with its edible lacy white blossoms shown on the right.
The Chez Panisse Flower Garden
A number of years ago I invited Andrea Crawford, then manager of the Chez Panisse restaurant garden in Berkeley, California, to join me in an experiment: growing a prototypical edible flower garden with which the chefs could experiment. She and Alice Waters, the executive chef of Chez Panisse, had been growing and serving edible flowers for years and were eager to learn even more. In this garden we grew flowers that none of us had ever used in the kitchen before.
To begin, we looked over my list of edible flowers, perused seed catalogs for unusual varieties, and ordered a good selection. Both Andrea and I gathered information from everyone we knew who had grown our selections. Jan Blum, of Seeds Blum, sent us 'Fragrance' dianthus seeds; Renee Shepherd, of Renee's Garden, sent us 'Kablouna' calendula, anise hyssop, and 'Whirlybird' nasturtium seeds; and we both raided our own supplies of seeds and plants. We concentrated mainly on annual flowers because we wanted to evaluate the flowers in the kitchen within a year and because they are easiest for most gardeners to obtain. Andrea had been producing borage, Johnny-jump-ups, lavender, climbing nasturtiums, violas, mustard, radishes, chicory, scented geraniums, and herbs for the restaurant, and she chose varieties from among her favorites. For years I had been growing scarlet runner beans, English daisies, and marigolds, but I had never tasted their flowers and was curious about them, so I chose the most promising varieties. I also selected 'Empress of India' and 'Alaska' nasturtiums, two particular varieties I had never used in the kitchen.
Summertime temperatures in Berkeley are moderated by morning fog, and few days exceed 90°F. The winters are mild, with temperatures seldom dropping below freezing. Though you might be hesitant at first about trying to duplicate much of this garden if you live in a northern region, almost all the flowers can actually be grown equally well anywhere in the country. The soil in the Berkeley garden was clay with a tremendous amount of organic matter added. The beds were in wonderful shape after years of loving care. Andrea, like most good gardeners, is passionate about soil preparation, and her years of effort showed. Her garden received no rain from May through September, and summer watering was a constant necessity.
Andrea Crawford (left) and Alice Waters compare notes on the edible flowers growing in the Chez Panisse garden. A harvest of edible flowers (right) from the Chez Panisse garden includes hollyhocks, squash blossom, nasturtiums, 'Lemon Gem' marigolds, calendulas, runner beans, and gladiolas.
Nasturtiums and daylilies frame a garden bench.
Andrea and I sat down to discuss both her experiences in the garden and the chefs' experiences in the kitchen. She was eager to sum it all up. She reminded me that she and Alice had been planning a pansy garden for the restaurant and had already planted flats. It had seemed natural to add hollyhocks, scarlet runner beans, anise hyssop, 'Austrian Copper' roses, 'Adnami' chrysanthemums, Alpine strawberries, and 'Lemon Gem' marigolds and to make the new, expanded garden both an ornamental border and a productive garden. We agreed to try to grow the approximate amounts a home gardener would use. "Well," said Andrea, "we planted far more than a person could ever use at home. In fact, that narrow strip, which is thirty feet by two and a half feet, produced more than the restaurant could use; but we viewed the beds as an ornamental garden that a person could also eat out of, and that was really very nice."
Andrea reported that Stokes Seeds had the best selection and that she could get just about all the varieties she needed from them. Thompson & Morgan, on the other hand, turned out to be really frustrating. They offered a large number of varieties, but Andrea found that they often seemed to be out of what she wanted and sent back credit slips instead of seeds.
In the end, the most successful and versatile edible flowers were the species Andrea had always grown for the restaurant—the nasturtiums, borage, and calendulas. Of the new flowers planted, the pansies—all varieties—were probably the most useful and were a lot of fun as well. The chefs used them as garnishes and chopped them into butters. The anise hyssop was very flavorful. The runner blossoms were tasty too—the chefs mixed them with other flowers and put them in salads. "Of the nasturtiums," Andrea told me, "we liked 'Alaska' and 'Empress of India.' The flowers of these varieties are similar to those of most other varieties, but the leaves are beautiful, and when they are small they are quite delicious. We hadn't used those before. With nasturtiums, taste is the most important factor, and that's affected by how you grow them. If you start them without much water, they're quite hot to the taste. They grow best in really lush conditions, and then they're much milder."
On the other hand, the hollyhocks were a complete failure—they didn't have much flavor and had a slippery quality like that of okra. Still, Andrea thought they might be
