Pumpkin flowers

One of the most delicious products of the garden right now are pumpkin flowers. And I am very proud of that, because pumpkin flowers are not well-known, and it's hard and expensive to find them on the market. Thanks to the innovative raised-beds I build, already by the end of May the daily harvest of pumpkin flowers is abundant (and it will keep on increasing in the next weeks and few months). There are "male" and "female" flowers on the pumpkin vine. The "female" flowers produce the pumpkin fruits, while the "male" flowers are visited by bees. Therefore I only cut the petals belonging to the "male" flower in order to allow the plant to produce pumpkin fruits while consuming its flowers (and its green leaves). Pumpkin flowers are very nutritious and can be eaten raw, or grilled/fried, or they can be used to color and perfume soups, rice, etc. or even to cover a pizza, instead of the tomato, when pumpkin flowers are available in great quantity.

Underneath you will see the pumpkin flowers I harvested yesterday, on Sunday. The pictures are a courtesy of my brother and my father, taken in our family garden by the sea.

And those are passion fruits flowers, of vines I planted four years ago from a seed, and taken care of since then. The pictures are taken by my brother. Soon, in one month of time, the passion fruit season will start.