Wild Edibles, part III

For those who garden or gather, this month is for you to try adding flowers to salads. One only need a base of favourite greens. I find baby spinach or mixed arugula greens works best, for flavour and texture. A light oil and vinegar dressing with celery or poppy seeds is best.

Then comes the best part: Any of dill flowers, chives and flowers, dandelion (petals only), calendula, chicory, nasturtium, daylily, violets, pansies and clover petals may be added to taste. Not all are needed nor desirable. Use what you have available.

Why not have an herbal tea too. Dried wild strawberries make a good tea but my favourite is sweetfern. Drying the plants intensifies the flavour. Crush a few in a small teapot that has been warmed. Pour boiling water over it, allowing it to steep. Strain and serve. Needs no sugar nor honey, but you decide.

Of course wild-gathered foods should be done mindful of contaminants such as exhaust and sprays.

Chicory flowers, by Martin Thomas
Daylily flower, by Martin Thomas






Viola tricolor, by Martin Thomas


Sweetfern, photo by Marian Munro

February's violets

Few people would not recognize the flower representing our coldest month – the violet, cousin to pansy. Violets convey faithfulness, wisdom and hope. In Victorian Britain gifting someone with violets meant that the giver would always be true.

Violets come in purple for sure, but in Nova Scotia they are also white or yellow or a combination of those colours. Early spring arrivals, these plants also produce flowers we rarely see and that never open, amongst the leaves.

Pansies, a hybrid grown as an annual, will often revert to one of their parent species, Viola tricolor, best known as Johnny-jump-ups. These hardy little plants boldly appear following a season of pansies.

Top photo is Viola sp. Lower photo is Viola tricolor, Johnny-jump-up. Both by Martin Thomas.

Photo above is a Johnny-jump-up photo by Andy Dean.