More than cute – they're edible - Shared Kitchen

ByJulie Biuso 5 May 201531 August 2023 0 Comments Tamsin Wilson harvesting edible flowers

Tamsin Wilson brings together the strands of her culinary journey to places as far afield as Cyprus, Gibraltar, North-East Thailand and Northern Laos, to Patumahoe, a rural town on the southern outskirts of Auckland. It’s here she grows miniature vegetables and edible flowers, and raises dairy goats, ducks, chickens, pigs and sheep. Her joy comes from growing things naturally, in a healthy soil, a concoction, she says, made of compost, coffee grounds, compost tea, pea-straw and manure. Sprays are natural, too, made with seaweed extract, fish extract or neem tree oil. The garden flourishes as is evident in the flawless, beautiful produce.

I’ve long been a user of flowers to brighten dishes, grabbing bits and bobs from the garden, but I’m very much from the camp that less is more. I generally don’t want to eat a bunch of flowers with a slice of cake, for instance, but a few petals scatte...