Here are my suggestions of edible flowers to pick in the spring and summer months.

I added nasturtium and borage flowers to this salad to give it a peppery and cumber taste.

Flowers should generally be consumed sparingly and if you have pollen or ragwort allergies you should avoid them altogether.

Make sure you only pick flowers you know to be chemical-spray free.

Borage or starflower was introduced to Britain by the Romans and grows wild. It is a bee-magnet and often covered in pollinators.

The leaves, flowers and stalks are edible and taste a little like sweet cucumbers. Borage leaves are good in soups, salads, in yoghurt or cream cheese mixtures, or you can freeze them into icecubes and drink with Pimms.

Wild chamomile flowers have a meadowy apple taste and are often found in meadows or alongside tracks between May and October. There are two kinds of edible chamomile; Roman chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile) and German chamomile (Matricaria recutita). Both varieties help to reduce anxiety and promote good sleep as a tea, but you can also make a chamomile syrup to add to baking.

As you might expect, chive flowers have a light oniony flavour and can be added to dips, egg dishes, potato and pasta salads for colour and a bit of added flavour. Mix with butter and leave overnight to infuse the butter with flavour.

As they are quite delicately fragranced, they can be used uncooked without overpowering a dish.

Centaurea cyanus have a slightly sweet to spicy, clove-like flavor. The vivid blue flower is sometimes used as a food dye.

They can be bitter if used in large quantities so this is most commonly used sparingly or as garnish in salads or on puddings

The flavour of a Dahlia will change according to the soil and conditions in which they were grown but flavours range from water chestnut through to a spicy apple or even carrot. Dahlias are originally from Mexico and the Aztecs used to grow Dahlias in Mexico and eat the flowers and tubers. Dahlias were imported to Europe as a possible potato substitute but the idea never caught on.

Not just the preserve of rabbits and guinea pigs! This unmistakable yellow flower has a surprisingly lovely smell at close quarters. It is a powerful antioxidant and the flowers, stems and leaves are all edible in salads and sandwiches. If you want to eat the leaves and stems, it is best to blanch the plant under a plant pot for a few days in advance, to make them less astringent tasting. Dandelions can even brewed into a tangy citrusy wine or the roots used to make a beer along with burdock roots.

Some varieties of Hemerocallis are edible and have a slightly sweet lettuce or melon flavour. They are often quite sweet, crisp and chewy and can be used in puddings (as long as the bitter white base of the flower is removed) or in salads. In the spring, gather tender fresh flower shoots that are about 10cm inches tall and use as a substitute for asparagus.

Elderflowers and berries need to be de-stemmed and cooked to destroy the toxins in the plant but the cordial captures the delicious summery taste so perfectly, it is well worth the effort. The flowers can be added into berry crumbles or tarts to infuse their perfume or the flower heads even made into a sweet tempura/fritter dish.

Be sure you don’t eat the berries of the honeysuckle (which are toxic), but the flowers of a honeysuckle plant are somewhat unsurprisingly honey-flavoured and delicious. If you cook them with water and sugar they can be made into a syrup to sweeten iced tea, lemonade, yogurt and fruit sorbets.

Calendula officinalis or Pot marigold are one of the few edible marigold varieties and the vibrant orange petals are high in vitamin A and C. Marigold petals can be used as a substitute for saffron in rice dishes or soups. The petals are also great in salads as they have a citrus flavor that is both salty and sweet.

Bee Balm or Monarda has an unsual citrus, earl grey tea flavour that works very well as an oregano substitute on pizza or pasta dishes. It can be added to herbal butters (like the chive flower) or into cream cheese or pesto.

Nasturtium flowers and leaves are extremely nutritious and one of the most commonly used edible flowers and have a sweet, peppery flavor similar to watercress. Frequently the leaves and flower are added to salads to give a spicy flavour but the flowers and leaves can be used in soups and pastries as well as added into a pesto to make it more nutritious and flavourful.

Pansies come in a range of colours and have rather a poor reputation as a municipal bedding plant. However, the small sweet flowers are high in antioxidants and well worth adding to soups, salads or they can be candied and used in desserts.

Primula vulgaris or cowslip is a beautiful spring flower and while they are not that flavourful they are often added to dishes as a garnish or crystallised and dried with sugar to be used on baked goods. If properly crystallised they can last for up to a year. Stick to the pale yellow flowers to be on the safe side

All parts of the the ramson are edible and the flowers, similary to chive flowers have a leek/onion flavour. Add them to salads and pestos and butter when you see them in bloom. In countries with bear populations, the bears seek them out dig them up when they emerge from hibernation and that predilection has given rise to the botanical name of the plant, Allium ursinum or 'bears' onion.