2026

Flowers weren’t the first thing on our minds when we established the garden. Yet, edible flowers were in the front-and-center crescent bed of our first Pilot Garden plan in 2010. Through the many subsequent years, we went veg crazy and rotated different crops – including experimental crops – through the crescent bed. Now we’ve come full circle and embraced the concept of a permanent edible flower bed at the beating-heart-center of the garden.

However, a permanent home for flowers in one bed created a crop rotation problem, triggering an effort to identify the various plant families that the flowers fall into. (Surprisingly, they’re not all in the aster family.) But with that squared away, we are now able to enjoy spectacular flowers in our crescent bed season after season.

A look back reveals numerous flowers grown at Robbins Farm Garden. We’ve grown amaranth, bachelor’s buttons, borage, calendula, celosia, dahlias, lovage, marigolds, nasturtiums, saffron crocus, salvia, snapdragons, stock, sunflowers, verbena, and zinnias.

Though few of these flowers are, in fact, eaten, the spiritual sustenance they provide is profound. And the pollinators couldn’t be happier!