Eat up the fruit and veg in your Chelsea Pimms and look for flowers in your salad.

Food for Free (Collins Natural History Paperback)

There are many plants whose flowers can add spice and variety to our food. Use the petals after removing the stamen and pistils. This list of tips and a top ten is based on colour and taste.

1. Wild Garlic flowers can be picked in hedge rows and add a soft garlic taste to salads.
2. Lavender can be used to flavour sugar or dried and used in cakes.
3. Courgette flowers are often stuffed or battered in posh restaurants and make a delicate starter.
4. Nasturtium flowers make good salad or sandwich accompaniments
5. Legume flowers like pea and bean flowers are delicate additions to a salad or soup.
6. Rosemary flowers go well with fish
7. Calendula or Pot Marigold petals have a peppery taste and make good salads.
8. Violet flowers are also peppery but look good decorating a salad.
9. Day Lily ‘Hemerocallis’  flowers can be used in stir fries.
10. Chive flowers taste fine in an omelette aux fine herbs.

Do not eat flowers that have been sprayed with insecticide or fungicide.
Always wash flowers gentley but well.