Here is my monthly posting for the Gardener Bloggers Bloom Day. Like most others in Zone 7, I have just a few pansies and such outdoors, but inside I have a real indoor garden riot. I lost my one blooming orchid to a cat-astrophe (see previous post here). I'm making up for it with paperwhites, Christmas Cactus, and poinsettias in every room. I also have blooms on some of the tender plants I brought in to winter over including begonias and coleus. I left my geraniums out too long this year and they got badly iced but a surprise deep freeze last week :-(. It will be another month or so before all the bulbs I'm forcing are ready to emerge from my vegetable crisper drawers. I had to laugh at a house guest who came over and actually thought I'd stocked those drawers full of good-for-you vegetables and tried to pull some of the promising bags out. While the tulip bulbs are edible*, as they are already potted up in premium soil, I prefer my guests snack from my cookie jars and junk food cabinets instead.
*According to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm: "All parts of tulips are edible and the bulb can be substituted for onions (although they are a little more expensive and less flavorful). The petals have little taste but can be used to garnish a dish, chop a few petals and throw them in a salad, sugar them to decorate a cake or use the entire flower for a fruit bowl, pinching out the pistil and stamen in the middle."
*According to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm: "All parts of tulips are edible and the bulb can be substituted for onions (although they are a little more expensive and less flavorful). The petals have little taste but can be used to garnish a dish, chop a few petals and throw them in a salad, sugar them to decorate a cake or use the entire flower for a fruit bowl, pinching out the pistil and stamen in the middle."
Just like outside, you can't have too many blooming plants indoors, especially with weather like we are having. Thanks for posting for bloom day!
ReplyDeleteCarol, May Dreams Gardens
I had no idea tulips were edible. I thought only squirrels and moles could eat them.
ReplyDeletePretty indoor flowers.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that about tulips. Interesting...but I won't be adding them to my salads anytime soon. Hope you are not getting socked by the weather this weekend.
ReplyDeleteLove those indoors blooms of yours, they are great! Tulip bulbs are indeed edible as many were eaten in my country during the hunger winter in the second World War. Those bulbs saved the lives of many people!
ReplyDeleteBTW my Bloom post is up too if you're interested!
We had all kinds of weather this weekend - from 50mph windows to hail to fog - just bizarre - but thankfully not the ice that was forecast.
ReplyDeleteI have not tried to east a tulip myself - but had heard it is done in times of food scarcity as Yolanda related.
Checking out all your bloom posts now...