I'll show you what's actually growing and flowering this time of year. Here in Arizona's winter it is in the 40's we are having a bit of a cooler week this week but first some of you out there it might be a little bit cooler or even a little bit warmer. I wanted to show the top 10 edible flowers to grow in the cool season that we really love.

Starting with number 10:

10. Snapdragons

We tend to grow the snapdragons in a little bit more shady environment in our garden especially here in the summertime, however as we move towards the winter season we can grow these flowers in areas with more Direct sun.

These little guys as we've come to know and love them have a little mouth kind of thing they can open up and say hi to you just like a little puppet. A side note, I always blow on my flowers in my garden before I eat them because there could be a little bug or something inside of there or potentially bee and I certainly don't want to eat that!

These little edible flowers are a great addition to your salads. it's a better garnish then it is a part of your salad but actually taste fine as well. it has a little bit of a bitter taste kind of like lettuce, but mostly used as big as a garnish. So that’s why it’s my number 10 because it is not my favorite.

9. Chinese Broccoli

Now this one is actually a new one for us. Chinese broccoli is a little bit different then your regular broccoli because it doesn't grow into a large head. Ours right now Is already flowering because we had a little bit warmer of a season. We like that! And these little flowers are really sweet! has a nice broccoli flavor to it. and if you don't eat it at this time when it blooms like this you’re really going to miss out on all the edible parts of it!

8. Traditional Rose

Sometimes I do not eat these because they look too pretty, but often we will get a late-season bloom out of these guys. If you keep picking the roses, your plant is going to keep blooming for you.We have a nice little dwarf rose bush in our garden and we love it. The petals are edible and have a variety of uses like making essence of rose.

7. Petunia

Petunias make great ground cover plants. We have quite a few of them during throughout our yard and one of my favorites is called the sugar daddy petunia. Yes, they are edible flowers. They look awesome in a salad, You can sugar coat them, candy them (like we’ll talk about later on down the list) and so much more!

They have a very beautiful trumpeting bloom that makes an incredible garnish. It taste just like a salad; yet it has a little bit of sweetness to it and a fun indescribable flavor.

6. Lavender

We grow these in out in our front yard and the HOA loves them! Now the trick to growing these flowers is: Cool Season, Full Sun. If you have it in full sun in the cool season it will produce a nice full set of blooms. With Lavender I don’t eat them just straight off the plant, What I usually do is I take those flower heads and I mix them in with the lemonade. That's my favorite way to eat this particular edible flower.

5. Cauliflower

Cauliflower is going to start blooming typically a little bit later. We grow these in full sun and we eat them while they are in the bud stage. There are dwarf varieties that produce beautiful little florets that we adore and some of these are even early bloomers.

4. Dianthus

Dianthus is another great one. I like throwing these in our salads. There’s more about these flowers that we can give to you if you click this link. This is a low growing flower with a beautiful pink hue that is a great splash of color for your garden.

They have a bit of a peppery flavor to them and we really only eat the petals. The back part of that flower we usually don’t eat, we just pull off the petals and toss them into our salad.

3. Viola

So the viola and really anything in that same family is a great add to the garden. It actually has some natural antihistamines in them, so if you’ve got the sniffles a viola is a great thing to grab! They come in a few different colors; I have some yellows and blues. They are similar to a pansy, but a little bit smaller than that.

These guys can be candied and used on cakes. Actually we used these guys on our gingerbread house this year. We got to bring some garden elements to that little tradition. We put some pansies on the roof and made a few little broccoli trees. We made it as part of a little competition and thought we’d win, but the world wasn’t quite ready for our candied viola gingerbread house, but we loved it and it’s a fun little add!

2. Hibiscus

If it is still sunny enough for you to be able to grow this guy there are actually a couple varieties. We love the double blooming variety and the San Diego variety. Now if you have high blood pressure, this ones a great little add for you! We like to stick it into a lemonade, giving it a deep red color and a fantastic flavor. They are also great to toss into your salads as they have a great flavor to them with a bit of sweetness that you’ll really enjoy.

1. Pansy

Now the top edible flower for the cool season is one that we keep around especially after considering its medicinal value. Panies come in many different varieties, but one of our favorites is the Bakersfield Pansy. This one we eat on a regular basis. We have a little rule in our house that whenever our kids have the sniffles or are feeling under the weather before they take any other medications. As a result, we haven’t had any medications in our house for allergies since 2013. We just eat these guys. Plus they have a great flavor!

And that’s my top ten!

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