My introduction to eating flowers (apart from Thumper eating clover in Bambi) was Bob Flowerdew’s book The Organic Gardener.

Flicking through the pages, I came across his flowerdew salad – a stunning mix of colourful flowers and fresh herbs. It looked amazing – to me at least, though my work colleagues weren’t even slightly tempted by the idea of eating pansies with their cucumber, tomatoes and lettuce.

That was in 1993.

Fast forward to 2013 and Tom Aiken’s Restaurant in Chelsea is positively awash with edible flora - Loch Duart salmon with viola flowers; poached chicken with marigolds; rose-poached strawberries and elderflower syrup. It’s not just in honour of the nearby Chelsea Flower Show – Tom has been using flowers in his menus for a number of years. The world famous Noma Restaurant in Copenhagen (part of the New Nordic movement I talked about last week) often uses flowers in its food – from beetroot with thyme flowers to broad beans with cucumber and mustard flowers.

Eating (and drinking) flowers goes back thousands of years. The ancient Greeks were partial to a bit of violet wine, the Romans often used rose in their cooking and the Ottomans used rose petals to flavour the wonderful (real) Turkish delight. The Elizabethans used flowers extensively in their cooking and for homemaking and cosmetics– as did the Victorians and just about every age but our own.

If you only have a small patch of ground on which to grow and there are members of your household who don’t want the whole garden turned over to a veg patch, what are your options?

1 You can install trellises everywhere and grow upwards as well as on the ground – we’ll talk more about growing in three, four and even five dimensions in a later blog.

2 You can sneak in decorative vegetables – stripy cabbages; rainbow chard for their colourful stalks; romanesco broccoli for an instant lesson in fractals – there are lots more. They still need quite a bit of space to grow well and can leave big gaps in your garden design once they are harvested, so you need a cunning Plan B.

3 You can grow flowers which just happen to be edible or useful in some way, thereby keeping other members of the family happy while still adding a high value crop to your growing scheme.

By growing your own edible flowers you can be sure they are free from pesticides, freshly picked and devoid of bugs and beasties. There are lots to choose from. Thompson and Morgan’s website have a handy guide to edible flowers with suggestions for using them and contraindications about when you should avoid them or take it easy.

Start by growing some of the more commonplace culinary flowers and add new ones into your repertoire once you’ve got used to using them. Good ones to start with are:

1 Nasturtiums – an explosion on your taste buds just waiting to happen, they make your salads look amazing. Try them stuffed with crabmeat too (for the non-vegetarians).

2 Lavender makes lovely tea, biscuits, ice cream and a delicate preserve. I use them to make lavender brandy liqueur – a wonderful rich flavour that warms the cockles of every organ and is perfect for Christmas presents. I have to be honest though, many a soggy summer has put paid to my lavender plants and I sometimes have to buy the flowers in.

3 Sweet violets – good for teas, syrups, scattered into a salad or candied as cake decorations. Make sure it’s sweet violet (viola odorata) though – dog violet won’t taste of anything much.

4 Rose petals – whip off the white bit at the base (it’s bitter and horrible) and sprinkle the petals into salad, make syrup (perfect in rice pudding) or a delicate preserve.

5 Chive and wild garlic flowers – pack a punch and a half in your salads – a strong onion taste and lovely texture. The colour of the chives is amazing.

6 Carnations and pinks – have a lovely nutmeg-like flavour and are equally wonderful in salads and more delicate baking and brewing.

7 Elderflowers – delicious as fritters, fried in a light batter or used to make a light, sparkling ever-so-slightly-alcoholic champagne.

8 Sweet cicely – the leaves used to be added to rhubarb to sweeten it so that you didn’t need to use as much sugar, but the flowers and leaves can be added to salad to give a slightly aniseed flavour that really freshens the palate.

It pays to build up your range gradually. Make absolutely sure that the flowers you plan to eat are an edible variety and if in doubt – don’t! Marigolds for example are extensively used in cooking, but not all marigold varieties are edible and you need to be sure the ones you plan to eat won’t end up with you at A&E.

Jekka McVicar, doyenne of the herb world, produced a wonderful and inspirational book – Cooking with Flowers - now sadly out of print. You could try to track down a copy in your local library.

Next on my own Flower Power list? I’m going to have a go at making Four Flower Liqueur with rose petals, clove pinks, orange blossoms and sweet violet (and a handful of spices).  That’ll do nicely at Christmas when summer’s blooms are but a distant memory.

Have fun in your gardens this week!