It turns out I wasn't the only one impressed with Borage. Some bumblebees have recently taken up residence outside our house and as you can see from the above picture, they love these flowers. It's magical to go outside and see a fuzzy little bumblebee dancing around a flower you helped to grow.
I first found out about Borage when I was researching edible flowers for salads. It came up as a beautiful blue star shaped flower with edible flowers and leaves. My plants are completely organically grown from seed, no pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or chemical fertilizers, just home compost and soil from the yard. If you are frustrated with wanting to eat organic but not always being able to afford it, growing some Borage is a great way to cheaply and easily start to grow some of your own food and experience a truly fresh addition to your meal. The recipe below is a salad I made with mixed greens from the store along with fresh picked Borage and collard greens, just to give you an idea what I use Borage for.
According to Plants for a Future, Borage flowers and leaves are edible. The leaves are eaten typically raw in a salad, as a pot herb, or pureed into soups. Rich in potassium and calcium, the leaves have a salty, cucumber flavor. It is recommended that you either chop up the leaves finely since they have a fuzzy texture if you’re eating them raw, or you can puree them for soups. The leaves and flowers should always be used fresh because they lose their flavor and color if dried. The flowers are eaten raw, as a decorative garnish in salads and summer fruit drinks. They have a sweet, slightly cucumber flavor. You can also make a refreshing tea from the leaves and/or the flowers. An edible blue dye can also be obtained from the flowers and used to color vinegars.
I was glad to find out how easy it was to grow Borage They prefer semi-shade or full sun, can grow in nutritionally poor soil, and are drought tolerant. Even though it does not transplant well, as a prolific self-seeding annual, once Borage is established in a spot it pretty much takes care of itself, year after year. The growing plant is said to repel insects, though it is pollinated by bees who are attracted to its sweet nectar. Borage makes a great companion plant for most plants, including strawberries and tomatoes. In fact, it’s known to actually improve the flavor of tomatoes it grows close to. In my experience, Borage seemed to grow best in semi-shade, but the Florida sun can be harsh sometimes. I was surprised at how big the plant got, with a thick stalk that needed some kind of support, either from other plants or sticks, to keep it held up.
Borage Salad and Homemade Dressing
I eat some variation on this salad almost every day. Quick to make and satisfying with lots of room to adapt.
The Salad
- Start out with a bowl of salad greens, I usually use mixed greens.
- Add a couple handfuls of nuts. I have a preference for raw pecans, almonds, and/or walnuts. Use whatever you want, it’s just nice to have some crunch in a salad
- Fresh Borage cut into small thin pieces. I used about a handful of leaves in my salad.
- Any extra stuff like fresh-ground black pepper and other edible flowers and leaves you have on hand. I put only one Borage flower on my salad as a garnish since there weren’t that many flowers left I didn’t want to take them all from the bees.
The Dressing
This will make enough dressing to fill one standard size salad dressing bottle (I just reuse one from the store) and enough left over for one large salad to use when you make it.
1 c olive oil
1-2 Tbs apple cider vinegar
1-2 handfuls of nutritional yeast
juice from half a lemon
1 tsp Braggs liquid aminos or soy sauce
sprinkle of garlic powder
other spices like oregano, basil, etc to taste
- In a small bowl, mix all the ingredients together until well blended
- pour into cleaned salad dressing bottle/jelly jar/etc
