Edible Flowers

One of the best ways to celebrate Garden Day on 11 October 2020 is by inviting neighbours and friends around for tea and biscuits, a foodie-feast or a glass of bubbly! Add a bit of floral detail to your celebration by harvesting edible flowers to decorate food and drinks.

The options are endless when it comes to edible flowers. They can be used fresh in a number of culinary dishes, crystallised with sugar for decoration, frozen into ice cubes to add to a cocktail and even blended into plain sugar.

Eating and cooking with flowers can be traced back to Roman times, and to the Chinese, Middle Eastern and Indian cultures. In Britain, edible flowers were especially popular in the Victorian era.

You can easily add vibrancy and taste to your own dishes and drinks with edible florals, and by planting your garden with your favourite varieties you will have a bountiful source of edible beauties for regular floral harvests.

Important: When foraging for edible beauties in your garden, be sure to avoid picking flowers that have been sprayed with pesticides or other harmful chemicals. Also, some flowers are poisonous so do ensure a positive identification before it goes onto the plate.

Here is a list of our favourite edible flowers: