Pumpkin flowers can indeed be eaten as vegetables!

It has high nutritional value, clears away heat and promotes dampness, and is both a vegetable and a medicine.

Moreover, the edible value of pumpkin flowers is also recorded in "Chinese Materia Medica".

Pumpkins are very common in my hometown. People like to plant a few at the base of the walls of small courtyards and let them climb along the walls.

Pumpkin flowers can easily fill the shelves, but I didn’t know before that the huge pumpkin flowers can be eaten as vegetables.

The first time I saw someone eating pumpkin flowers was when I went to the countryside to do fertilizer experiments a few years ago. I saw a lady who was growing vegetables in a greenhouse, frying pumpkin flowers and eating them.

What a luxury I thought at the time!

How do you stop picking pumpkin flowers without worrying that picking them will affect the yield?

In fact, there are still skills to picking pumpkin flowers!

1. To pick "lying" flowers. In rural areas, the male flowers of pumpkins are generally called "lying flowers". Why, it is only responsible for pollination and does not bear pumpkins.

The flower will fail when it blooms, just like the lying flower of the pomegranate flower.

Why pick flowers of lies?

As long as it does not affect the pollination of the female pumpkin flowers, there is no problem in picking as many false flowers as it will not affect the yield.

But the female flowers are different, they bear pumpkins.

So the question is, how to distinguish the male and female flowers of pumpkin?

Inside the male flower, there are only filaments and anthers.

At a glance, there is a columnar flower core inside the flower; and the female flower of the pumpkin has an ovary.

If you look carefully, you will notice that the flower core of the female pumpkin flower has several petals.

Female flowers that have been successfully pollinated will have a "little melon button" on the back of the flower.

The words may sound abstract, but it’s more intuitive when you look at the picture below, which shows the male and female flowers of a pumpkin.

2. It is easy to understand that it is necessary to pick at the peak of flowering. Picking pumpkins when they have just begun to bloom is a waste of time.

After all, growing pumpkins is mainly for eating melons, not for eating flowers.

Pick pumpkin flowers during the peak flowering period without delaying pumpkin pollination. These flowers will consume nutrients when they grow on the pumpkin vine, so you can save nutrients.

Also be careful not to pick flowers that have just bloomed.

As for how to eat pumpkin flowers, you can stir-fry them, such as scrambled eggs with pumpkin flowers, which is a famous dish!

You can also make soup, or wrap it in batter and fry it before eating.

It’s delicious just thinking about it!

Welcome to "Walking Between Grass and Trees". My name is Manman. I love flowers, grass and the countryside. I am willing to share it with everyone.

The heart of grass and trees, the taste of the country, savor it carefully and take a long walk.