Learning to Grow: Edible flowers can add fun to one's meal

I love to walk out the back door in summer and grab a handful of herbs to season my meals – basil for homemade pesto sauce, tarragon and chives for my omelettes. And edible flowers to add color, flavor and texture to everything from salads and sandwiches to drinks and baked goods. This list includes just a few of the many types that will thrive in our region and add culinary interest to your dishes all summer long.

• Violets (Viola species): Candied violets gained popularity as a sweet treat during the 19th century, and though they are less common today, the flowers are plentiful in spring and the candies are easy to make. Violets like a fertile, moist – but well-drained – soil and do most of their blooming while the weather is still cool. In addition to sugaring for candy, violets have a sweet flavor on their own and are elegant when used as a garnish in cocktails and punches, mixed into fruit salads, as a topping on ice cream or as the finishing touch on your cakes for afternoon tea.

• Nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus): Nasturtiums are an easy-to-grow annual that can be planted from seed in full sun in early spring. Growing to 12 inches in height, the leaves have a unique rounded shape, and flowers bloom in vivid shades of red, orange and yellow from midsummer until the first frost. Due to their peppery, spicy flavor, nasturtium flowers are often added to salads and sandwiches, providing dishes with a bright pop of summery color.

• Common lilac (Syringa vulgaris): If you are anything like me, every year when May rolls around and the air is perfumed with the heavenly smell of lilacs, you find yourself wishing you could just drink them in. Well, you can. (Sort of.) Many varieties of lilac have a sweet flavor on their own, but like violets, they make for charming and unexpected little candies. Put them on vanilla ice cream, cakes, pies and yogurt. The shrubs perform best when planted in full sun and well-drained soil, and to encourage heavy flowering next year, deadhead after blooming is finished.

• Impatiens (Impatiens walleriana): Were all the gardeners digging around in the shadows starting to feel left out? Fret not! In addition to being a low maintenance annual with a long bloom season and availability in a wide selection of colors, the bright and cheerful flowers of impatiens, staple of the sunless corner, are indeed edible. Plants grow best in moist, well-drained soil in partial to deep shade, and are an attractive choice for beds, borders and containers. Flowers taste sweet and are lovely in salads or floating in a punch bowl.

• Bee balm (Monarda didyma): A member of the mint family and popular with hummingbirds and, well, bees, these flowers are fit for human consumption as well. When planted in a sunny spot with fertile soil, the perennial plants can reach 2 to 4 feet in height and are quick to spread. Flowers have a distinctive shape and bloom in mid- to late summer in shades of pink, white, red and purple. Bee balm’s minty flavor is a welcome addition to the salads and other light fare of summer, and flowers can be chopped, steeped and strained to make bee balm tea.

Exercise caution when consuming edible flowers, and be sure to choose plants that haven’t been exposed to pesticides. For the best flavor, harvest flowers in the morning and during peak bloom time.

Sarah Marcheschi is a University of Illinois Extension master gardener for Kane County. The “Learning to Grow” column runs weekly during warmer months of the year. Call the extension office at 630-584-6166 for more information.