Today’s post is about edible flowers! I first got interested in edible flowers when I started the Armagarden. That’s my mash-up of Armageddon and Garden. It’s what I jokingly call my Veggie/Edibles Garden, since Hubs (also jokingly) says it is what will help sustain us once we run out of gasoline and enter Mad Max Times.

We live on a large corner lot at a busy intersection. My kids rake in the dough at the lemonade and art & artifact stands they set up throughout the year, but that’s a post for another time. My point is that our yard is highly visible from all four sides of our house.

Hubs thinks that Veggie Gardens are kind of ugly. I completely disagree, but I digress, again. Since he wasn’t all that excited about having a Veggie Garden visible to everyone that passed by our house, I decided to pretty it up for him by adding edible flowers and other ornamental edibles / edible ornamentals.

I planted several varieties and they filled our salads, garnished our plates, and amazed our potluck participants. They add loads of color and nutrition to your plate and they are so much fun, they even encouraged my kids to eat more salads and healthy whatnots. So I decided to share the joy with you, friends!

There are tons of recipes on the interwebs using edible flowers (I mostly used them for green salads, potato salads, pasta salads, all kinds of salads), but first I should share a few warnings…

1. Don’t eat flowers that have been treated with pesticides, including any flowers purchased at florists, grocery stores, etc. unless they are specifically marked “edible”. Regardless of your thoughts about using commercial pesticides on your veggie garden, the pesticides used for ornamental flowers are NOT tested for consumption and could be considerably stronger and much more dangerous.

2. Don’t eat flowers unless you are certain of their identity. A few edible flowers closely resemble poisonous varieties. Not many, but still… Err on the side of safety.

3. If you have pollen allergies, use caution when eating edible flowers. You are likely to also have an allergic reaction to eating the pollen if you have a reaction to breathing it. I have pollen allergies that are pretty easily controlled by OTC allergy medicines like Zyrtec and Claritin and I’ve never had any problems. But if you go into anaphylactic shock when you sniff a daisy, you probably shouldn’t eat one.

4. If you have any doubts about any of the above warnings, don’t eat them! I play things a little fast and loose and haven’t had any issues, but I refuse to be responsible for your poisoning yourself! Do some extra research if you have any doubts whatsoever. Seriously.

I will be posting a pretty exhaustive list of edible flowers with photos shortly, so stay tuned!