Flowers of Food

Arugula Flower

I only recently began gardening. I have focused on native and drought tolerant plants with pretty flowers and, or, smells. I never previously considered food. With the months of shelter in place, however, food has been growing on our property which has been a delight for several reasons.

But the surprise reason for me has been the flowers. I had never thought about food plants and their flowers before. The flowers are wonderful! There are big bold yellow flowers for zucchini and pumpkin, little fairy like wands for green onion, the smallest yellow flowers for tomato, and these wonderful pictured above flowers for arugula, to name a few. The arugula flower is amazing. Thoughts inspired for me by this flower: the petals appear to have a stained glass window image of a white flower in each petal, it all somehow looks both animal and plant similar to how a butterfly looks almost animal and plant, overall it makes me think of a biological satellite spinning through the atmosphere above my yard.

It turns out a flower garden can provide food for bees, birds, and humans when it is a vegetable garden. Food for bodies and for contemplation. Pretty amazing what grows from earth.