Violets Aren't Blue, But They Are Edible

Those persistent little weeds in your yard could go into your next meal!

When I first moved into my house, my yard was an overgrown, neglected disaster. I'm talking "ivy growing over terra cotta pots you wouldn't even know were there" level of disaster. A dear friend and mom figure in my life came over and helped me to make sense of the space and reshape it into an intentional landscape, and one of the things she taught me was that these little plants pictured to the left are aggressive weeds, and need to be pulled out if you don't want them to take over.

Fast forward two years, and I got into edible flowers as a form of cake decor. One of the first things I learned was that purple and white wild violets can be eaten and are, in fact, pretty good for you. And I found myself glad I hadn't done a very good job of weeding out my yard...now I keep a little patch of violets going.

I'll be doing a post eventually on other edible flowers you can introduce into your food and garnishing needs, but violets are an easy one to source if you're not in a perfectly manicured place and they grow in your region. I've used them freshly picked (and washed!), as well as pressed and dried. To press and dry them, just rinse the flowers, dry them off, and then press them into a heavy book or two in between two sheets of wax paper. They should be ready to use in a day or two.

Here are some photos of them in use, as well as just in existence, because I think they're pretty marvelous little creations, when you really take the time to look closely at them.

Oh and regarding the title of this post--violets are purple, right?? Maybe it's subjective, but as an art major I'm pretty confident that these are more purple than blue...