Nasturtiums, kids and frost

Nasturtiums and kids are a great combination.

We filled up one bed with a few plants grown from seed this spring and for a reward we have had an overflowing sea of these colour-rich, edible flowers that has lasted for months. The seeds are a decent enough size for small hands to plant and the flowers (and leaves) have injected colour to salads and vases.

Last night, we had a frost.

Sadly, as you can see, nasturtiums and frost are not such a great combination.

Here endeth the lesson.

 

Comments

[Esther Montgomery]

My memory has gone wrong. My nasturtiums are still flowering (we haven't had a frost yet) and I have been surprised. I have grown them before but without noticing they carry on this late. Indeed, I'm feeling a bit fed up with myself because I pulled some out thinking they were almost done and I needed the space. Now I regret not leaving them.

Unfortunately, though, the ones I have left insist on flowering under the leaves so they aren't as cheerful as yours were before they got zapped.

[Petra Hoyer Millar]

Do you eat them? Have heard that the young leaves are rather tasty, though have never tried them.

[Carolyn @ Urban Veg patch]

Mine were not so much a sea as a river in full flood, preventing access to the other raised beds. I was, therefore, quite glad when they started looking a bit ropey and could be heaved onto the compost. Not so with the calendulas, lovely bright orange, still flowering - and edible! (And, possibly, keeping bugs off my brassicas.) Top choice.

[Dawn]

Esther - I also tend to be premature with whipping out nasturtiums so this display is more luck than judgement on my part.

Petra - yes, leaves and flowers are edible which makes for a very colourful salad

Carolyn - I also had calendulas but as I gave up dead-heading a while sgo they were more about seeds than flowers by the end. However, there are now several hundred self-sown seedlings all over the veg patch so I won't be without them in future.

[fingertrip pulse oximeter]

preventing access to the other raised beds.