You probably didn’t know that tulips were edible. And quite frankly, who would want to bring a beautiful bunch of tulips inside only to scarf them down? But in case you have the goal of only growing plants you can eat this year, tulips are a good plant for you to fudge the rules a bit.
I’ve already started seeing tulips in the nursery here, so I am sure they are soon to follow in the rest of the country as well. Here are two different ideas featuring tulips…
Yellow Tulips & Purple Kale
Kale is a surprisingly good companion to tulips. The two plants foliage contrast nicely, with the tulip’s strapy, smooth leaves look great against kale’s curly, fringed leaves. And yellow tulips look great against a deep purple background.
Pink Tulips and Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’
This is another combo that has really great contrast between the two plants. The artemisia has silvery, finely cut foliage, which allows the bubblegum pink tulips to really pop.
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Are you serious? Tulips are edible for humans? I’ve always heard the bulbs are toxic (if for no other reason than the fungicides they are dusted with). Surely no one should eat tulips they’ve not grown since commercial growers use all sorts of chemical poisons. But imagine the salads you could make, the glorious colors. What do tulips taste like? Do you know? Should they be steamed first? And most important of all, where do you find bizarre information like this?
Shari–The flower petals are the part you eat, not the bulbs themselves. They taste kind of like peas.
These combos are definitely for containers, because in the garden, the tulips are long gone by the time the kale is fully grown or the artemisia has grown enough to look like anything. At least that’s how it is here in zone 5!
Pretty combos, though. And I love the photo of the squirrel!
Kylee & Melanie–This must be a regional difference, because artemisias like ‘Powis Castle’ are lush and nice looking year round here. And I first got the idea to combine tulips with kale from The Bountiful Container by McGee & Stuckey. Kale is grown in mild climates like mine from late Fall until the end of Spring.
From the time the snow melts, mid April to mid May there is a variety of tulip blooming, until the beginning of June, in my zone 3 garden. However, unless you started you kale indoors, in March, it’s size would be so insignificant it would not make a nice contrast with a yellow tulip, same with the Artemesias. It’s a great idea though, picking plants that bloom at the same times with an eye to their colour combinations. Everyones garden is different. The best way to do this is to keep a day to day dairy of what is blooming in your garden, for a whole year. With this knowledge you will be able to make sensible decisions about planting colour combinations.
Tulips and kale is a surprising combo. And one I never would have thought of. The yellow tulips with the purple kale is pretty but I would bet that many other color combinations would work as well or better.
I love to wow my guests with summer salads that are garnished with rose petals, nasturtiums, and pretty little blue and white borage flowers. (Admittedly, the borage is a pain to pick and clean, but it makes the salad awesome…tastes kind of like cucumeber.) Oh, and, my favorite thing to hunt down is something we called “sour grass” when I was a kid. If anybody knows what it really is I would love to know, too. It grows in clusters with thick-stemmed single stalks that can get to about 8 to 10 inches tall with a small yellow flower on the top. The stems are wonderfully edible, with a tang like a lemon. chop the stems and pick the flowers for a salad and everybody will want to know what you did to make this one so tasty.
Well, I googled sour grass and, sure enough, that’s what it’s called. The pictures that came up made my mouth water. BTW…it’s an oxalis.
Try 1 gallon containers in a milk crate: change out and shift around the containers. A regular milk crate is about 12 inches by 12 inches inside measure, and will hold 4 gallon containers the size of milk jugs. I’ve even grown small cabbages in them (picture ornate green rose shapes – lovely).