You will have realised by now that I adore flowers and grow more than is sensible for one household, but then sharing and gifting is a lovely side-effect of allotmenting.

I mostly focus on flowers bred for show and fragrance and I have largely ignored the vegetable flowers, often quite small but vital for our harvests.

The broad bean flowers are stunning in their delicacy, with thoughtfully highlighted landing paths to aid their pollinators.  I noticed their fragrance this year, which is usually lost when grown in the open.  Every bit as delicious as sweet peas.

Then there’s the tomato flower, small and pale yellow – hardly a stand-out but from those tiny flowers come tasty cherry flavour-bombs or huge beefy globes.

The cucumbers and melons have almost identical flowers – hardly surprising as they come from the same family.

The dwarf french beans are very pretty, particularly the purple Amethyst variety – tasty too!