Edible Flowers for Leafy Green Salads

Leafy Green Salad Strewn with the Edible Viola Tricolor 

Edible flowers are perfect to strew in a salad. Or rather, as my husband will point out, many things are edible, but some are poisonous. So do be sure you are sure whatever flowers you do choose to bestrew are those you can use with impunity. 

My dear friend, Egbert van Bart, who lives in the Groot Marico, once said that the difference between gourmet food and fast food lies largely in the variety of herbs and spices added to it. I found his insight (as with so much of his wisdom he generously imparts) to be remarkably profound. Which made me realise, anew, how wealthy we truly are when we can grow our own.

We recently spent some time in the Kamberg, which abuts the Drakensberg Mountain range. There, grown wild into the lawn, or maybe evidence of an earlier flower-bed that had been grown over, was a series of delightful viola tricolor.

Viola tricolor or Heart's-Ease or Johnny Jump Up

However, I know the flowers as heart's-ease. The original or wild pansy, referenced in Shakespeare's Hamlet: "There's pansies; that's for thoughts"; heart's-ease is not only edible but also full of antioxidants. The flowers were therefore hence perfect to pluck and strew on a salad. The children accordingly went out and picked the little heart-ease - in all three different colour combination - hence the term tricolor. 

However, this made me think about all the edible flowers and leafy greens we grow in our monkey-proof organic vegetable garden, of how much fun we have growing them, and also eating them. (Caveat: many flowers are poisonous, so only ever pick those you know are edible, and if you are at all unsure as to the identification of a plant: DON'T eat it).

Small blue borage and yellow rocket flowers and orange nasturtium 

Borage, though hairy, has pretty blue flowers which are perfectly edible, though tiny; rocket is diverse in its variety, from the typical yellow flowers shown above to a gorgeous white paper-like flower shown below:

Rocket flower - one species

There is one particular variety of rocket of which we are peculiarly fond, and that is this little bush-like rocket which sprawls everywhere, seeds prolifically, has plants that pop up all over the place, has a very hot and spicy flavour - and - most importantly, appears impervious to snails - they must be put off by its spiciness.

This delightful rocket is hot and appears impervious to onslaught by snails 

Of course, no edible salad would really be worth picking without the amazing nasturtium. The nasturtiums are loved by both Fudge, our rabbit, and Bella, our guinea pig, which is just as well since , once seeded, they now ramble most amazingly all over the vegetable garden and hence are plucked often and fed to them. 

Amazing depth of colour in a nasturtium 

My husband and I both love our salads, and we glory in being able to pluck and eat such a wonderful range of tastes and textures from our garden. Funnily enough, we tend still to buy our lettuces during the summer months, since our region of the world gets too hot and humid in summer for them, and they bolt, silly things. (Bolting means they get all hot and bothered, flower prolifically and then go to seed in a matter of weeks - and bolting lettuce is extremely bitter in taste, so you can forget eating it). So, the question is, what leafy greens do we grow in our garden, for plucking and putting into our salads? 

Well, there is an entire range of mints to chose from (and Turkish food requires copious additions of mint as well as drying it out in the oven). For beauty and a striking taste, we really enjoy the slightly hairy, but interesting ginger mint:

 Ginger mint: slightly hairy but has fabulous ginger taste 

My husband thinks I take way too much glee in the name of our next interesting plant, the Bloody Sorrel. Its leaves are large, so we tear them apart into smaller chunks and tend to discard the inner, red vein, it can be a little tough at the end.

Bloody sorrel - yes, that is its name. 

Basil is of course always a favourite, but purple basil is particularly pretty:

Pretty purple basil

Then there is tarragon, which is generally used for fish or chicken dishes, but is delightful in a salad. Tarragon is also a perfect companion plant for strawberries:

Tarragon - another delightful addition to a salad 

The new pink, blending to purple, of beetroot leaves is another favourite addition. Did you know that, originally, beetroots were grown specifically for salads and not for their root system?

Beetroot leaves are a great addition to a salad

We tend to grow our beetroot for plucking - particularly given some nematode activity we haven't really gotten around to eradicating, given that the mole rats have been harvesting our tubers anyway, so until we strategise around that particular onslaught, we'll stick to what does best for us right now.

We love to use oreganum too, as well as thyme, fennel and just about any other leafy but non-hairy green in the garden. I draw the line at borage leaves (way too hairy to be palatable) and horse radish leaves (too bitter and hot at the same time). But as you may have gathered, at least we tried them out.

Yellow-green coloured  oreganum - so pretty 

So - what are you waiting for? Go and plant and harvest a bed of leafy greens and edible flowers today.

Do remember, however, to wash your leafy greens, flowers and cherry tomatoes 

Serve, and enjoy!

Beautiful salad