good enough to eat
Making an edible bouquet
How to create beautiful bouquets using only plants from the vegetable garden
Published in Gardens Illustrated magazine, November 2020
Words by Bea Andrews / Photography by Eva Nemeth
Choosing your vegetables for a bouquet
I have always been fascinated by beautiful ornamental vegetables, especially ones maturing in the autumn. Their colours are deep and glossy with earthy tones and lush textures, they look painterly arranged in a basket and make fantastic gifts for foodie friends and family. They are even more attractive when arranged as an edible bouquet.
Herbs with long stems and woody branches add aroma and texture with lovely shades of silver, deep green to purple. Shrubby, evergreen herbs such as rosemary, thyme, sage, winter savory are the best seasonal choices as they have strong stems and long lasting foliage. Leafy herbs with softer textures like coriander would generally wilt quickly in a bouquet. Garden grown parsley however has more robust stems and leaves and if well hydrated before arranging, they can be great additions.
Edible flowers can also be a wonderful ingredient in an edible gift. Whilst they are generally less abundant in late autumn and winter, many beautiful violas are grown in the colder months and their flowers can be added to winter salads. For using in a bouquet, choose varieties with longer stems, or lengthen a small bundle of short stemmed flowers with florist wire and stem tape.
If using root vegetables, carrots, beetroot, parsnip, turnips picked from the garden, add these upside down to your bouquet, using their leafy tops as the stem, showing off the attractive earthy colours of their roots. Add onions, garlic the same way, it works especially well when they still have a length of stem attached.
Leafy vegetables, with adequately sturdy leaves for arranging, such as cos lettuces, chard, chicory and endive have a huge range of leaf colouring and variegation, especially if you grow your own from seed. Some produce with large fruits such as aubergines, chillies, peppers are easy to secure with wire or a wooden skewer to help fit into a bouquet. Try avoid using softer fruits that bruise easily.
For my edible bouquet I used the following produce: chard, black Tuscan kale (Cavalo Nero), green curly kale, small red cos lettuce, witloof chicory (Belgian endive), flat leaf parsley, rosemary, thyme, green and purple sage, lime green Romanesco cauliflower, purple sprouting broccoli stems and aubergine.
How to create your own edible bouquet
Choose your crops. Leafy vegetables and herbs need to be well hydrated before arranging, so if you have a chance, stand the stems in a jug of water for an hour or overnight before you arrange your bouquet.
Make mini bunches. Creating a few smaller bunches of the individual vegetables and herbs will make it easier assembling the bouquet later. To secure the mini bunches, tape these together with florist tape to avoid bruising the stems.
Additional support. Vegetables without an actual stem to hold will need supporting in a bouquet. There are two ways of adding an artificial stem to these by either securing florist wire or inserting a long wooden skewer into their sturdy base about 3cm deep. I added these to my aubergine, cauliflower, lettuce and endive.
Forming the bouquet. Once ready to bunch your vegetables, treat the leafy stems as foliage background and the larger heads of fruits and vegetables as focal points in a few well placed spots in the bouquet. It is best to place the larger produce in the middle where they are well supported by the rest of the ingredients.
Securing the bouquet. While adding your vegetables, turn your bouquet every so often to check it has a good balance on all sides. Tie it with twine when finished. Keep it somewhere cool in fresh water or hydrate the leaves with a mister until you are ready to gift it.
Final touch. For a complementing rustic finish, use a hessian sheet for wrapping your bouquet and tie it with a matching hessian ribbon.
Extending the mix. The choices of colour combinations for edible bouquets are endless, and you can easily boost your vegetable selection by adding a few ingredients to your gift bouquet from a farm shop, farmers market or supermarket. Aim to keep your choices as seasonal as possible for appeal and choice.
- Photographed at the gardens of Sussex based wood sculptor Johnny Woodford -