FIMBY: Enhance your food with edible flowers

This is another installment in our Food in My Back Yard series, devoted to edible gardening.

My first acquaintance with edible flowers was during the crunchy-granola 1970s. I was visiting a friend, whose roommates were preparing dinner. One roommate dashed outside, returning with a bright marigold flower. To my surprise, he crumbled the petals into the salad bowl on the table. Instant color for those greens, and yes, instant flavor pops, too.

Since then, I don't blink at blossoms on food. I don't use them as much as I could, but happily grow plenty of plants that can lend their flowers to dishes.

However, edible flowers come with an important caveat: They must be grown organically, without pesticides. No residue on the food, please. That's why it's best to plant your own edible flowers -- you know how and where they were grown.

Also be aware that not every part of every edible flower is in fact edible. With flowers from borage, roses or calendula, only the petals are edible.

So which flowers are growing right now that can be eaten? An obvious one is the blossoms on the squash plants. Especially if you're already tired of zucchini, try picking some of these flowers (morning's best), removing the stamens and pistils, and stuffing them with a cheese mixture before frying them.

Scarlet runner beans are another vegetable with easy-to-eat flowers. The petals of sunflowers are edible, too -- save the seeds for roasting or for wildlife.

Also, any flowering herb that can be eaten has, naturally, edible flowers. Not all may taste that great, but you can't go wrong with chive blossoms, lavender flowers or rosemary blooms. Mint, sage and scented geraniums (pelargoniums) have lovely edible flowers, too.