![\"nasturtium01\"](\"http:\/\/www.chickenfish.cc\/bio\/wp-content\/media\/nasturtium01-225x300.jpg\")
<\/p>\nGarden Nasturtium – Tropaeolum magus – has a very spicy taste and is a lot like water cress with a siginificant amount of pepper added. Given that it is often a weed in temperate gardens it can be overlooked as an interesting culinary experience.<\/p>\n
The crunchy flowers eaten whole really do taste pretty good in a salad or added to a bowl of blander leaves like lettuce etc. And the nasturtium leaves can be used to make really tasty parcels when used like a vine leaf to wrap other items inside them – e.g. they can be used to make an excellent tapas item.<\/p>\n
It is a water lover and I have found tends to grow bigger and better usable edible leaves and flowers in a cooler climate – however they love direct sun and thrive on heat as well as long as they get the water at their roots.<\/p>\n
They form a low growing scrambling plant that will flower and self seed easily. They can spread extensively through a fertile well mulched soil but usually tend to stay at surface level so they are easy to move around or remove entirely if they get out of hand.<\/p>\n
The flowers of various colour seem to pretty much taste the same whether they are dark or light.<\/p>\n
Majus tends to die off in winter as it is an annual – but can last longer if the conditions are good.<\/p>\n
The seed is quite large and easy to collect from the pods that form.<\/p>\n
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http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tropaeolum_majus<\/a><\/p>\n The Tropaeolum\u00a0Genus is quite huge and varied and has a lot of really unusual plants in it – many of which are edible.<\/p>\n