Do I remove flowers on herbs?

I have grown herbs sporadically for a number of years and never quite know if I should be removing the flowers or not. I seem to remember advice which said the leaves suffer if you leave flowers on, but then other advice which said it was fine to leave the flowers. Any opinions, specifically on sage and rosemary?

 

Alternatively you can leave one plant to provide all the seeds you'll need next year, or the corriander seeds could be used in cooking.

 

In answer to your question - yes, you can!

Rosemary flowers can be sprinkled over cooked veggies or you can use them with meat and seafood, whilst Sage flowers can be used in salads as a garnish; they go well with beans and I often drop a few into something like a pesto sauce too.

Leaving the flowers on won't 'damage' the leaves per se, but as Loofah has said, it means the plant has bolted (i.e. is setting seed) and is probably past it's best, but, if you can nip the flowers off before they're fully open, you might be able to hang on to the plants a bit longer.

Just as a BTW - you can also eat chive flowers - they look quite pretty in a salad. Thyme flowers, can be used in just the same way as you use the rest of the plant and Dill flowers can be broken up and used in omlettes again in much the same way was you would the 'leaves', i.e. in a fish sauce.

Apart from courgette flowers, you can also eat those of radishes, peas and runner beans. And, I'm told, you can even eat Hemerocallis (Daylilies) flowers ... you use them in the same way as you would courgette flowers - not that I've ever tried them, they're far too pretty to pick and eat.

 

Rosemary and Sage, in my experience, don't suffer at all when you let them flower. On Sage, the rate of growth on the leaves will reduce significantly around flowering time (which is pretty much the rest of the year from now), but they'll still be fine.

If the soil is good and well water (but most definitely not soggy), Sage will just keep going strong and will quickly steal all the available space

I've never noticed any detrimental effect at all from Rosemary's flowering. Possibly because it has a much shorter flowering period, spanning just a few weeks at most (up here at least).

I say let them flower. The bees love Sage and Rosemary flowers, and of course a garden isn't really a garden without things buzzing in it.

Fidgetsmum, thanks for all the edible flower info. I didn't realise you could use all those flowers in dinner. I might give it a try once I finally finish making my new garden

 

Is there a good time to plant coriander then? Mine aren't that old but have bolted already.

 

Thanks to everyone for all this excellent information! I'll leave the lovely flowers, then (don't grow coriander and the hard winter took the parsley!)

 

Are you sure it was the winter that took the parsley? Its pretty hardy. I've knocked several inches of snow off mine in the past so I could harvest some.

If it was flowering at the back end of last year, then it would have died anyway by now. Parsley is biennial. Its spends its first year building up foliage, and its second year flowering and setting seed, before it exhausts itself and dies.

 

Pretty sure. It wasn't flowering last year, we're very high and exposed and had extended periods of snow and frost. Surprising things succumbed and surprising things survived. Didn't know parsley was biennial, though - thanks for that information!

 

I found some battered and neglected Parsley that had bolted & been thrown out of the kitchen in a pot last season.

I overwintered it in the hotbed & cut it right back, getting decent leaves off it now.

 

I have a tray of corriander growing in the greenhouse as a cut as I want ,I will be sowing another next week to be ready as this finishes, and then resow the first. I use a huge tub of corriander i bought in Cyprus, the seeds for culinary use.:WINK1: