A California Winery Blog

Rose Moradian writes about our organic vegetable garden, at Lafond Vineyards, in the Bistro Restaurant & Wine Bar Blog…

A common sight in the Santa Barbara area in the springtime, Nasturtium is one of my favorite salad ingredients! I am growing some for the Bistro in many colors. Nasturtium in Latin means literally “nose-twister” or “nose-tweaker”, as a common name, refers to a genus of roughly 80 species of annual and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the genus Tropaeolum (”Trophy”), one of three genera in the family Tropaeolaceae.

The flower is edible, making for an especially ornamental salad ingredient; it has a slightly peppery taste reminiscent of watercress at the end tip and sweet full leaves and is also used in stir fry. All parts of the plant are edible, not just the flower and leaves. The unripe seed pods can be harvested and pickled with hot vinegar, to produce a condiment and garnish, sometimes used in place of capers, although the taste is strongly peppery.

Nasturtiums are also considered widely useful companion plants. They repel a great many cucurbit pests, like squash bugs, cucumber beetles, and several caterpillars.
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