In the Garden, edible flowers.

October is traditionally the month of the year that the vegetable garden is at its leanest. The season is between slow-growing winter vegetables going to seed and the yet to be warm enough to plant out the summer crops.

I’ve been thinking about this and how I ‘think’ that there’s not much in my kitchen garden. The only thing is I forget that I pick and cook something out of it every day.

I thought I would start writing down a list each month of what I’m eating from the kitchen garden, focusing on one type of edible plant. Even though October is a little lean, by way of vegetables, there is one plant that I have more than enough of … flowers.

October is the middle of spring and spring means a lot of flowers. Because I like to use everything in the kitchen garden, I’ve planted a lot of edible and companion flowering plants over the years.

The Flowers

You can walk around the garden and snack on any of these flowers, this October …

		Apple geranium I would really snack on this one, as it doesn't really have any flavour. It would go wonderfully in a dry flower thing and it a great companion plant for the kitchen garden.
		Borage I never planted the borage. It just moved in from the neighbours. Now it's all through the kitchen garden. The flowers are rumored to taste like oysters, but I think they just taste like green!
		Elderflower Pick a large bucket of it. Ferment with lemons and oranges, cover with water for 5 days. Strain and measure how much liquid you have. Add a third of the volume of sugar. Stir to dissolve. Bottle and save for later. Now you have Elderflower cordial.
		Fennel seed For a while, I couldn't get fennel to set in the kitchen garden. I brought some from the plant person at the farmers market. She said that if I planted it out and let it go to seed, I'll have fennel forever. For the time being this means that I have a lot of lovely seed and pollen to use in salads, cakes, desserts or with pasta.
		Nasturtiums Another plant that I struggled to grow in the first few years at Jacican. Now it grows like a weed (and I pull it out like a weed) You can eat the mustard flavoured leaves and flowers. great in a salad. I think back in the day, they where eaten in white bread as a sandwich!
		Pineapple sage Use a lot on those competition cooking shows. In my kitchen garden, it grows by itself. Loves a hard prune. You can just pull the sweet flowers off and eat like a lolly. I like to bake them into a vanilla butter cake for something a little fancy.
		Rosemary Lovely with lamb, you can use the cakes in cakes for a savoury flavoured dessert. Sprinkled on top of ice cream for something a little different.
		Sage it's everywhere in my kitchen garden. And what lovely flowers. I seem to add sage to many things. The flowers are great in salads or served as a garnish with beef.
		Saltbush An Australian native that grows in dry coastal area. In dry times it is feed to sheep or these days, so they can charge more. I cook the leaves under lamb for a very salty jus. You can use the flowers just like salt. But they come with a warning ... they are very very salty.
		Thyme Thyme, thyme, thyme .. what's become of me! Bake these tiny flowers into a vanilla cake or flavour ice-cream