edible golden needle - day lily flower buds

Dear Family & Friends

Did you know that day lily is an edible flower? We planted daylilies in our garden and they are not fussy plants. By now, we have a big stock pile of these plants. I thought it is about time to put them to good use.

A full bloom daylily flower

You can buy dried day lily flowers in Oriental stores. It is known as 'golden needle'. It is delicious cooked with chicken in soy sauce sauce stew. Since we don't have Oriental stores here, I thought I should try preserving these flowers for cooking. I heard it is not advisable to eat these in great quantities...so harvesting them for future storage is also a good idea. Otherwise, they will all bloom up and it is not suitable for cooking anymore.

day lily flower buds are edible - best if they are still close buds

It's best to harvest the flowers as buds. Stir frying them - so delicious. I also gathered a few and steamed it for five minutes, then I dried them in a dehydrator. Now I have a bottle full of dried daylily buds for later use

my harvest of day lily flower buds

By autumn time, I will definitely propagate by dividing my day lilies and replant them so we can go all out in using them as edible food next year...the more day lilies in the garden - the better! They are easy perennial plants and if you don't eat them...the blooms are so beautiful for the garden too:) It's a winner plant!

Every year I'm learning to eat more edible plants to add to a wide variation of plant food for a healthier living. But with the intense summer heat...my immune system was knocked down with sleep deprivation. This week was bad. I had to medicate myself with cups and cups of herbal tea (echinea + lavender) it was so bitter that I added cherries to make it fruity:) With at least 10 herbal tea mugs that day and non-stop sleeping all night and all day...the flu just went! Grateful for the fresh medicinal cupboard we have in our own garden:) Hope your week was better than mine.

Yours