Who's been eating my garden? (Nasturtiums)

Member Name: janharper

Product:	Nasturtiums
Date:	10/06/05 (973 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: tasty, attractive

Disadvantages: don't produce choccy bars

When you get tired of gardening these flowers you can always eat them! They are rich in vitamin C and the blooms and leaves are edible.


Let's start at the beginning. Nasturtiums or Tropaeolums (or is it Tropaeola to be exact?) are very simple to grow. You can plant the large seeds that look like grapenuts in any kind of soil. It doesn't matter if it's blazing hot, or not, these amazing flowers seem to thrive anywhere. No special preparation, just throw them in.


From one single seed you gentle masses of leaves and loads of bright orange, yellow and redish blooms. There are trailing varieties that climb up walls and fill in gaps between other plants and other more compact varieties.


What they have in common is that they are easy for even the laziest of gardeners to grow. (I know about this as I have spent years trying to find plants for lazy gardening. I couldn't manage any other kind.)


The common nasturtium produces lots of seeds too. So once you have planted them in your garden you always have them popping up all over the place. I saw only a couple last summer but this year they are all over the flagstones by my hedge, as if by magic.


One of the less common varieties of nasturtium is the Trapaeolum Perigrinum, or Canary Creeper. It's leaves are not rounded like the common variety, they have three distinct lobes on them. The flowers are bright (canary) yellow and like the common variety there are lots of them. Seeds are produced in large numbers so you will have your own seed after the first year, ready for the next season.


There are a couple of other rare varieties of nasturtium for the collector. Among these are the Scottish Flame Flower which has red blooms and likes a poor, preferably acidic soil. Strangely enough, this particular variety doesn't readily produce seed so it's only posssible to propagate from live shoots. Another rare variety is the Trapaeolum Tuberosum which grows from tubers. This is a very energetic climber but the tubers are not hardy and have to protected from frost in winter.


I am not sure about the taste of these two as I have only eaten the common variety. Perhaps it would be best to err on the side of caution and stick to the common for ones for eating. Apart from the obvious caution here, rare varieties are very expensive and more difficult to propagate, so you wouldn't really want to eat them.


Once you've grown all these gorgeous varieties of nasturtium you can settle yourself and enjoy a veritable feast of succulent, fresh tasting leaves and flowers from the common ones as you enjoy looking at the others. Eat straight from the plant as nature intended, or add them to salads. Delicious!


(Now I just have to find a way to get one of those chocolate smelling plants to produce bars of choccy and I'll be happy!)

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