Weekend Projects | Edible Flower Fun

 With so much in blossom this month I thought it would be lovely to have a look at some flowers from an edible point of view. You’d be amazed at how many of the flowers in the garden we see every day are actually edible. As a garden designer I am always learning more about edible plants and am always fascinated by new discoveries. Growing edible plants with children is such a fun thing to do and is a great way of learning to identify plants and taking care of what is edible and what is not.

With so many edible flowers there is no reason why your garden border can’t look incredibly lush, vibrant and colourful as well as providing lots of delicious goodies for our weekend project.

This month it’s all about munching flowers. I have created a few fun things that are easy to make yourself at home at the weekend. The key is preparing one lemonade syrup mix and then using it to make the lemonade, the ice cubes and the ice lollies-this really is so do-able and so much fun for kids parties.

I wanted to make a lemonade that wasn’t too cloudy so that the flowers really show up so I decided to make a lemon and lime syrup which you can use again and again and becomes the basis for all the creative ideas here. It’s very easy and you simply add it to sparkling water to make lemonade. You could of course just buy a clear lemonade but where’s the fun in that and trust me, this tastes so much better!

1/2 litre water

2 cups organic sugar

2 squeezed lemons

2 squeezed limes

1/4 tsp citric acid

To make the syrup basically mix all the ingredients in a large saucepan and simmer for about 20-30 minutes on a very low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Take the pan off the heat and strain out any pulp left over in the mix. Add in a little more water to make about half a litre of syrup (it will have condensed down so will be thicker). Now put the syrup into bottles, such as the lovely Kilner range from Woodies and refrigerate until needed.

To make your lemonade just mix one part syrup to 4 parts sparkling water and you have a delicious lemonade which is nice and clear. Then add a few of your flowers to make it really pretty. To make it even simpler, you can use this lemonade for the ice cubes and the ice lollies too!

These are really super simple. All you need is an ice cube tray and ice lolly tray, edible flowers and the above lemonade.

Choose the flowers you want to have in the ice lollies -there are so many to choose from. I love the way Violas look in clear ice-they have lovely purples, oranges and blues and stay nice and firm in the mix.

I would advise to add a good few so that the effect is colourful-I used about 10 or so in each lolly. Use a small spoon to push the flowers deep into the ice pop makers.

Take your lemonade mix and top up the moulds to the rim.

Then gently push the lids on-making sure they don’t compress the flowers too much.

Freeze overnight.

Enjoy with sunshine!

For the Ice cube trays simply place one flower into each ice cube section (remember to put the flowers facing down as when they are popped out they will be the other way round).

Violas are a wonderful flower to use as they look so beautiful and colourful and tste really mild. They are also very easy to grow in containers which makes them perfect from every garden whether you have a patio, border or balcony.

Lavender has a very distinctive smell and taste and I love the combination of the lemon and lime mix and lavender. It’s really refreshing.

Anyone that’s ever grown these knows that they are so easy to grow. In fact, sometimes you have to end up weeding them out as they take over a flowerbed.  The colourful edible spicy flowers are so worth it though and can be added to salads and meals. The seed pods can even be used to make Nasturtium capers which are so delicious!