Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I love eating stuffed zucchini flowers and was looking in the patch today and thought, is it possible to eat squash and pumpkin flowers as they are very similar.

Does anyone know?

Sorry we from Germany don't eat the flowers, because we wait till the fruits grow out of the flowers...
As far as i know they're from the same family, but i don't know if they are eatable..

Sorry.

Yes you can eat them Mark. My italian mother in law used to coat the flowers in an egg style batter and then fry them in a pan with olive oil. It is quite funny because at yesterdays workshop I was explaining about the pumpkin that we had growing in the shade and saying it was too late to get fruit, however the plant will still produce edible flowers that can be battered and fried.

I've only ever tried cooking pumpkin flowers once. Spent ages cooking then up in a couple of different ways, only to find that they were horribly bitter. May have just been the variety or something.

Summer squash and zucchini have those nice big flowers that are great for stuffing and such. Or even just batter and fry the flower buds but then of course you don't get the fruit if you eat all the flowers. However, if you planted zucchini, you might not want that much of the fruit anyway. (Quick lock the door before we leave or some one might come and put zucchini in our house!!!!!)
Anyway, I expect many of that families flowers would be edible but some might be tastier than others. It is interesting to see what happens when you plant home collected seeds from plants in that family. I often have several types of things growing at once. Summer squash, winter squash and pumpkins and what grows from the seeds is often interesting. Ever seen a crookneck zucchini? or would that be a green summer squash.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't some of the flowers on zucchs male and others female? I think you can 'have your cake and eat it to' as the saying goes... The question is how to tell them apart, and I think it has to do with the way the base of the flower forms. Eat the male flowers and leave the female to fruit.

Input?

CB

CB, there's a few threads detailing how to tell them apart, I think they're under 'pollination' style topics.
The male of any flower tends to have a phallic like stamen, whilst the females have a circle of stamens with a hole in the middle.
In ragards to the pumpkin and zucc family, the females also carry an unfirtilized 'egg' looking like an immature fruit behind the flower. when the flower is pollinated, this fruit grows.