Food from Flowers – With help from our little friends

Have you ever stopped to notice the flowers that become our food?

A lot are small, some are insignificant, but others are as beautiful and spectacular as any ornamental flowers we grow.

Fortunately, however small and plain they are, the insects that pollinate them don’t miss them. They busily fly from one flower to another, getting their reward of nectar and pollen, unwittingly pollinating the plants.

The big majority of our food is reliant on our busy, buzzy, little friends doing this service for us. As they pass pollen from one flower to another they fertilise the plant and so allowing it to produce seeds.

As with everything in life we take things for granted until they are not there. I had my own little insight to how we take insects for granted.

I’ve mentioned a few times that we bring our chilli plants into the house over winter. 

The first year we did this, flowers appeared on the plants but I couldn’t understand why no fruits came. Then it dawned on me, inside our house in winter there were no flying insects to pollinate the chillies. I got a small make-up brush and dusted away from one flower to another. Eureka, chillies!

From Flowers to Seeds

Some plants just produce seeds in their flower. When the flower dies and dries-up the seeds simply drop to the ground, ready to germinate into a new plant.

Whilst other plants produce their seed inside a delicious fruit. Hoping for some hungry mammal to come come along, eat it, then deposit the seeds in a different location.

Today I’m concentrating on the flowers in our garden that literally turn into fruit.

Blossom

Probably the most famous fruit producing flowers of them all are blossoms. Cherry blossom in particular is celebrated, especially in Japan where people from around the world flock to see the spectacle.

We have our own little cherry blossom display with the desert variety ’Stella’.

More blossom in the garden comes from the pears. We have two pear trees grown against the ‘great wall’ at a 45 degree angle, as cordons, ‘Beth’ and ‘Louise Bon of Jersey’.

This year we seemed to have more blossom than ever, with the flowers tightly packed together.

Then to what I personally think is our most beautiful blossom, the Apple blossom. It’s the pink around the edges that makes it look particularly pretty. I think this would give any of the ornamental flowers a run for their money.

Strawberries

The strawberry flowers are very simple, they look like the kind of flower a child would draw, but the bright white really stands out against the bright green serrated leaves.

Blueberries

The blueberry flowers are definitely not a show stopper but look carefully at the flowers, and they look like tiny lamp shades. They are a similar size the the eventual fruit, but slightly elongated. Hollow little tubes.

It’s extraordinary how many blueberries this little bush produces. This year we’ve had over two and half kilos, sprinkled liberally over breakfast and made into cake for the freezer.

Gherkins

Into the greenhouse the gherkin flowers are the brightest yellow, they are only about an inch wide, but so beautiful. They remind me of a geranium flower which you obviously can’t get in yellow.

They are related the the squash family and look like miniature courgette flowers. They stay on the fruit as it grows too.

Chillies

You have to look closely to see the tiny white chilli flowers! They are not even half an inch wide.

As the chilli grows it seems to burst through the flower and you regularly find the dried petals half-way down the fruits.

Tomatoes

Tomato flowers are also small and delicate, like little yellow stars. Those of us that grow them, look daily for those first few to come onto the plants, but once the fruits start to come you hardly notice them.

Peas

Now everyone loves sweet peas, but edible pea flowers can be just as beautiful. They just don’t last as long or have the long stems for cutting. Not that you’d want to cut them and miss out on those delicious treats.

This is mangetout ’Shiraz’, I grow these as they are much quicker to harvest, you don’t have to sit podding, just eat the whole thing. I think these are just as beautiful as any sweet pea, but with benefits!

Broad Beans

I love the white flowers on the majority of broad beans, but from the moment I saw the pink flowers on the variety ‘Crimson’ I’ve never grown any others. It’s not that I think they taste any better, but they look gorgeous.

Aubergine

Now these are absolutely exquisite, pink and frilly like ballerinas dresses! Sadly they don’t last very long, dyeing back and fading, before the fruit starts to swell and peep out.

Climbing Beans

The colour of the flowers on the two French climbing bean varieties that I grow, matches the eventual beans. ‘Nectar Gold’ produces yellow flowers, followed by yellow beans. ‘Blauhilde’, purple flowers followed by purple beans. They are only small but very beautiful.

I’m sure that everyone recognises the distinctive red orange flowers of the runner bean. I don’t think any vegetable garden is complete without them!

Raspberries

Until I photographed the flowers on the raspberries and blew it up, I myself didn’t know what they looked like. They are quite unnoticeable on the canes, simply blending in. Once looked at closely though they are really distinctive, reminding me of a mop.

Courgette

I’ve left the biggest and most spectacular until last.

Could you get a bigger more showy flower than this?

They open like big yellow trumpets, 6-8″ across and the insects flock to them. Once the fruit is pollinated and starts to grow behind it, the flower closes up. At this stage most flowers just die off, or the fruit bursts out of them, but on the courgette it stays intact and fresh. The flower is a delicacy in its own right, commonly deep fried in batter.

Food Pollinated by Bees

Below is a list of all the world foods pollinated by bees. It’s quite eye opening to think of how incredibly restricted our diets would be without our little busy bee friends.

• ALMOND: honey bees
• ANISE: honey bee
• APPLE: honey bees, blue mason orchard bees
• APRICOT: honey bees, Bumblebees, Solitary bees, flies
• AUBERGINE: Bumblebees, solitary bees
• AVOCADO: bees, flies, bats
• BEET: hover flies, honey bees, solitary bees
• BLACK CURRANT, RED CURRANT: honey bees, Bumblebees, Solitary bees
• BLUEBERRY: Over 115 kinds of bees, including bumblebees, mason bees, mining bees and leafcutter bees
• BRASSICAS: honey bees, solitary bees
• BRAZIL NUT: Bumblebees, orchid bees, carpenter bees
• BROAD BEAN: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• BUCKWHEAT: honey bees, solitary bees
• CARDAMOM: honey bees, solitary bees
• CASHEW: bees, moths, fruit bats
• CELERY: honey bees, solitary bees, flies
• CHERRY: honey bees, Bumblebees, solitary bees, flies
• CHESTNUT: honey bees, solitary bees
• CHILLIES, PEPPERS: honey bees, stingless bee, Bumblebees, solitary bees, hover flies
• CHOCOLATE: midges (flies), stingless bees
• CLOVER: honey bees, Bumblebees, solitary bees
• COFFEE: stingless bees, other bees or flies
• CORIANDER: honey bees, solitary bees
• CRANBERRY: Over 40 native bees, including bumble
• CUCUMBER: Bumblebees and honeybees
• FENNEL: honey bees, solitary bees, flies
• FLAX: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• GRAPE: bees
• GRAPEFRUIT: bees
• KIWIFRUIT: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• LEGUMES: honey bees, bumblebees, leafcutter bees
• MACADAMIA NUT: honey bees, stingless bees, beetles, wasps, butterflies 
• MANGO: honey bees, stingless bees, flies, wasps 
• MELON: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• MUSTARD: honey bees, solitary bees
• NUTMEG: honey bees, bird
• OKRA: honey bees, solitary bees
• ONION: honey bees, solitary bees, blow flies
• ORANGE, GRAPEFRUIT: bumblebees, honey bees
• PAPAYA: moths, birds, bees 
• PEACH: bees
• PEAR: honey bees, flies, mason bees
• PEPPERMINT: flies, bees
• PLUM, PEACH, NECTARINE: honey bees, Bumblebees, Solitary bees, flies
• POMEGRANATE: honey bees, solitary bees, beetles
• POTATO: Bumblebee, solitary bees
• RAPESEED: honey bees, solitary bees
• RASPBERRY and BLACKBERRY: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees, hover flies
• SESAME: bees, flies, wasps
• SQUASH, PUMPKIN, GOURD: honey bee, squash bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• STRAWBERRY: honey bees, stingless bee, Bumblebees, solitary bees, hover flies
• SUGARCANE: bees, thrips
• SUNFLOWER: honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees
• TEA PLANTS: flies, bees and other insects
• TOMATO: bumble bees, solitary bees
• VANILLA: bees

I’m sure we all agree that we wouldn’t like to live without the majority of the foods on that list!

As gardeners its our duty to do everything we can to help the bee population. The two main things being, growing pollen rich plants throughout the year and cutting out chemical use from our gardens.

If you’d like more The Wildlife Trust have lots of information on everything from how to build a bee hotel to the best plants to attract pollinators.

Stay safe & happy gardening.