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Yesterday I had a little existential crisis. I say ‘little’ because I’ve had bigger.
My first existential crisis happened on the eve of my tenth birthday. Something about hitting ‘double digits’ really got to me - I wasn’t ready. Life was moving too fast and I didn’t have a plan. I saw my childish cuteness slipping away, replaced with the toothy gawkiness of preadolescence and it scared the sh*t outta me. And so that night I waited in the dim light of our dark hallway for my Mum to get out of the shower so I could break down and confess that I didn’t want to go to sleep and wake up older.
After that, the flood gates were open.
In high school lit class I learned about the heat death of the universe - that didn’t help. At 17, giddy off Smirnoff double blacks, I clutched my friend’s amplifier and listened to the guy from Neutral Milk Hotel sing “one day we will die and our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea, but for now we are young, let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see”. I watched that youtube video where they count out the average human lifespan in jelly beans and once you subtract time spent asleep and commuting there really aren’t very many jelly beans left.
My biggest existential crises to date began when my husband and I decided to have a baby. That really put turning ten into perspective. There’s no winding back the clock on parenthood. And actually having a kid provides some pretty strong, irrefutable evidence that you aren’t a kid anymore. Time has well and truly marched on.
Getting married, having children - these were always landmark life events that happened off in the distance. To a version of me who I didn’t even recognise. They always felt so far away. And then suddenly, one day, they’d happened, and a new kind of existential crisis revealed itself to me. The kind where life starts going really fast and you realise you’re 34 and - if you’re lucky - you’ve used up about half of your jellybeans. And what are you going to do with the jellybeans you have left?? And how are you going to spend your one, precious life? And are you even paying attention to that one precious life, or are you too preoccupied by how quickly it’s slipping through your fingers?
I often look down at my little sleeping boy, whose face is new and older every morning. “These are the best days of your life” my Mum tells me. Ah crap. How on earth should I spend the best days of my life??
My default, for the longest time, has been to spend them working and worrying about the future. Except the future never comes, does it. Our life is a collection of todays, and no tomorrows except the ones we lie awake at night worrying about. My boy is playing with pine needles in the winter sun and I’m worrying about articles I haven’t written yet. He smiles up at me, full of all the joy that a fresh puddle on the pavement elicits, and my mind lurches back to him from distant, banal lands of ‘healthy meal ideas for toddlers’ and unanswered emails.
I’m an idiot. I’m missing it.
So, I’m going to try to do something new. Something I’m quite good at when I’m in the garden, but appallingly bad at during the rest of my waking hours. I’m going to stop planning, stop strategising, and optimising, and worrying about screwing things up, and I’m going make it a priority to enjoy myself, today. With him.
I think they call it ‘living a little’.
And also I’m going to plant a motherload of edible flowers.
Because maybe I will never fully learn how to stop being a highly strung maniac in the rest of my life. But I do know this: if we can all quiet our monkey minds for just a minute we might remember that today the world is sun-drenched, salty-aired and blue-skied, that our children are soft-cheeked and far wiser than we give them credit for, and, whether we are 17 months old or 70, that the only thing we are ever assured of is the moment before us, in all it’s open-ended and uncertain glory.
And I figure the best way to spend at least a portion of it is by sucking the nectar out of a nasturtium in the sunshine.
All the flowers you can eat
This is going to be a big list because I want to allow for the possibility that you might actually fill your entire garden with edible flowers and nothing else, which would be a very sane and sensible thing to do.
Speaking of being sensible, please do always make sure you are very certain that whatever you are eating from your garden is safe to eat before you go munching on it. Check and double check on anything you are even 1% uncertain of. Don’t go throwing away all of your jellybeans by chowing down on some toxic flower in the name of a life well lived, because living a ‘life well lived’ kind of requires you to also be alive.
That said, here are the flowers.
Edible ornamentals
African daisies (Osteospermum)
Alyssum - from the same family as watercress, the snowflake flowers of alyssum are great for decorating cakes and desserts
Baby's Breath (Gypsophila sp.) - has white or pink flowers with a very slightly sweet flavour.
Bidens (Bidens alba and Bidens ferulifolia) - I haven’t tried eating the petals of this rambling cottage garden shrub (yet), but multiple sources online report adding the petals to salads and teas
Borage - lovely little star shaped flowers in purple and white, these flowers taste like cucumber and are great in salads or in a G&T.
Calendula - bright yellow petals fantastic for salads!
Chamomile - teeny white flowers with happy yellow centres, dry these and steep them in boiling water to make chamomile tea
Chrysanthemum
Cornflowers
Dahlias - incredibly, dahlia flowers and tubers are edible! I still haven’t tried them because I can’t bring myself to consume the plants I love so much. But if you have them crowing in abundance and can spare a tuber or two, or a few flowers, give them a go!
Dandelions - dry the flower heads to make dandelion tea!
Freesias - edible petals which can be infused into syrups
Fuchsias - many different varieties of fuchsia have edible flowers and berries! They are so ornamental and beautiful it’s hard to believe they can be tasty too. For a list of the most flavoursome varieties, check out this website.
Hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa)
Hollyhocks - I still can’t believe hollyhocks are edible, but multiple sources tell me the petals have a mild, lettuce-y flavour and to remove the centre stamen and any green parts before eating them.
Honeysuckle - use these sweetly fragrant and nectar-rich flowers in syrups, jellies and as a pretty garnish o n desserts
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)
Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) - intensely fragrant flowers that are traditionally used in jasmine tea
Magnolia - magnolia buds and petals are edible. I haven’t tried them (yet) but apparently the have a spicy flavour and can be eaten raw, cooked or preserved in vinegar or sugar syrup.
Marigolds - lightly peppery orange petals great for salads
Nasturtiums - beautiful orange petals with a peppery flavour, but the best part is the nectar hiding in the little ‘straw’ at the bottom of the flower. Pinch the end off the straw and suck the nectar out.
Pansies - the most commonly used edible flower along with violas. Can be added to salads, used as a garnish for cakes or candied and added to desserts
Persian silk tree (Albizia julibrissin) - I never knew the flowers of the Persian silk tree were edible but multiple sources have confirmed you can eat them! If you have ever tried these flowers please let me know in the comments what they taste like - they seem very fuzzy to me!
Robinia flowers - I haven’t tried these yet but apparently they have a light, sweet flavour! Our Robinia was just removed because of the shot hole borer, so I’m going to have to sneak flowers from someone else this spring to try them.
Roses - petals can be used in teas, syrups, jellies and icecreams
Rose scented pelargonium flowers - I like to scatter these on top of bowls of bircher muesli in spring and feel obscenely wholesome and virtuous. They have a perfumed flavour and are just lovely.
Stocks - flowers have a lightly perfumed flavour and can be used as a garnish, added to salads or candied and used in desserts.
Sunflowers - toss the petals through salads and eat the seeds before the birds beat you to it!
Sweet Mace (Tagetes lucida) - flowers can be added to salads and the leaves can be used in dishes that call for French tarragon.
Turmeric flowers - these highly ornamental white flowers have edible petals which you can pick off and toss into salads
Violas - the most commonly used edible flower along with pansies. Can be added to salads, used as a garnish for cakes or candied and added to desserts
