Borage tastes of cucumber, take a flower and eat it, you’ll taste a good cucumber nom, put it in your salads. It’s a bit prickly but as soon as you cook it it that goes away. Use it as an edible decoration. Make borage lemonade, preserves, borage jelly, steam and use as a vegetable.
I picked a ton of leaves filled a 5 gallon bucket, put a big stone on top, filled with water, cover. Leave for 2 weeks, filter, bottle, use 1 part to 10 parts water….fertiliser for your plants.
I love those flowers to eat in salads and an addition to sandwiches. If you cook it goes like spinach again with the cucumbery taste. Don’t just use the leaves the stems are chopped too. Use them in tacos with goats cheese, this is another yum!
It is used in pickles for gherkins in Poland. In Germany they make a soup of it. In Italy it is used as a filling for ravioli. Persians make a tea of the flowers.
It is claimed to improve the flavour of tomatoes, companion plants for tomatoes, brassicas and legumes.
People do chop and use them raw but I’ve personally never tried that; give me feed back if you do!
Historically it was used as an antidepressant, old folklore says it gives you courage and will comfort the heart. For the romantics, if a woman puts a piece of it in a man’s drink apparently he’ll gather the courage to propose!
Borage
height of 60–100 cm
flowering season from June to September
