Edible Flowers For The Vegetable Garden

General Gardening
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Back when I was planning out a permaculture farm (a story for another time; I’m not a pro and I don’t have land yet), I was working out a companion planting scheme for my selection of crops, and decided to include flower strips (as well as herb strips) between crop rows in the plans. While plenty of useful companion flowers were standard inedible ornamentals, there were many in the list that had edible blossoms, bulbs or other parts. Some were added to the list merely for being edible ornamentals (the blooms would attract pollinators), while others had more complex companion plant value.

This is the list as it currently stands:

Chrysanthemum coronarium
Reichardia picroides
Tagetes spp.
Cosmos caudatus
Calendula officinalis
Taraxacum officinale
Chicorium intybus
Microseris lanceolata
Centaurea cyanus
Acmella oleracea
Carthamus tinctorius
Helianthus annuus
H. tuberosus
Dahlia spp.
Dianthus caryophyllus
Viola spp.
Pelargonium spp.
Papaver somniferum
Tropaeolum majus
Primula vulgaris
Campanula rapunculus
Polianthes tuberosa
Camassia quamash
Triteleia laxa
Tigridia pavonia
Lillium spp.
Hemerocallis fulva
Clitoria ternatea
Lupinus angustifolius

There were also a couple of minor roots that weren’t much for flowers, but seemed adequate for the list:

Conopodium majus
Bunium bulbocastanum
Perideridia gairdneri
Amphicarpaea bracteata
Lathyrus tuberosus

Right now I’m trying to collect some minor edible bulb flowers for my own garden. I’m currently looking for Triteleia laxa: three forms of it. The standard “Queen Fabiola”, and the much larger (and harder to find) “Sierra Giant” and “Humboldt Star”. Any leads for the latter two would be appreciated.

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So I guess I don’t know most flowers scientfic names but we always enjoyed our nasturtiums. Slightly peppery if shade grown and young. Both the flowers and leaves.

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I’ve been meaning to get my hands on those too. Good companion plants, edible blossoms, and I’ve heard you can use their fruits (¿or was it seeds?) as a caper substitute. Tropaeolum majus. Right now I have a close relative, Mashua (T. tuberosum). I picked the mildest variety I could find: Copalis. Almost killed it in full sun, it’s growing much better now in the shade. It’s an andean tuber, by all rights it shouldn’t be growing in my tropical neck of the woods anyway. :sweat_smile:

The botanical names are just my standard procedure, to avoid confusion. Most names that I type in the search bar will give me loads of unrelated plants, but the botanical ones will give me just what I’m looking for.

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Really easy to grow from seed. Some say they are hard but we just dropped them in decent soul with no stratification or anything. In the shade, they grow like crazy.

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Not full shade but afternoon shade definitely

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