A regular garden usually has many food plants in it, even if a vegetable or herb garden hasn't been deliberately planted. Here are five garden plants you can eat:
1. Dandelions
Dandelion greens are delicous and this recipe for mashed potatoes with dandelion greens is particularly tasty and easy. You can also roast the roots to make a coffee-like drink. You can eat both leaves and flowers in a salad, and make wine from the flowers.
2. Nasturtiums
You can eat the leaves and flowers of Nasturtium in a salad, and make a pesto from the leaves. The seed pods, picked when green, can be pickled for a crunchier, tastier, peppery alternative to capers.
3. Roses
You can crystallise rose petals to decorate cakes, and put them in salads. My grandmother made a wonderful plum and rosepetal jam. The rosehips can also be used to make a jelly or a syrup.
4. Oxalis
Oxalis are those tiny weeds with leaves like three delicate hearts that start growing everywhere, whether in flower beds or flower pots and window boxes. They're in the wood-sorrel family and have a sour, lemony flavour like sorrel. You can also use the flowers and leaves to make tea.
5. Amaranth (eg Love-Lies-Bleeding)
You can eat Amaranth leaves in salads, and stir fry the stems and leaves. The seeds can be ground into a flour. You can also pop the seeds (video) like popcorn.
These are just five examples, there are also dozens of other edible weeds and flowers that you probably already have growing.
No comments:
Post a Comment