Friday Foraging #86 - 28th Feb 2025

Borage

Borago officinalis also called Starflower is an edible annual herb with flowers and leaves that can be harvested for food, to make natural dye or to make herbal teas with.

This plants season starts in March and end in September, although you will still find the plant around in the wild later than that, but it really is past its best.

We can forage the leaves, flowers and seeds of this plant.

The leaves are bristly or hairy all over when mature the leaves are alternate, oval in shape and between 5–15 cm long.

The beautiful little blue flowers have five narrow, triangular-pointed petals. Flowers are most often blue in colour, although pink flowers are sometimes seen in the wild. Once you’ve found Borage you will know it.

The plant tastes just like cucumber and the flowers and young leaves are best as the mature leaves have rather a rough hairy nature that isn’t pleasant in the mouth. These can be used for cooking though, or for brewing a tea. The flowers are a great addition to salads and summer drinks.

The young leaves can be picked as the plant grows, then leave it for a while until it starts to flower, you can then collect loads of flowers daily from every plant, borage can flower for long periods of time.

In the UK the plant thrives in sunny locations that have been disturbed, often found on roadsides, wasteland and fallow cultivated land. Borage is a strong, medium-height wildflower with unmissable bright blue flowers that attract masses of beneficial pollinators and insects. These flowers feed a multitude of bees and butterflies among other insects, so don’t over forage any one patch.

If you want to take a cutting and grow your own at home then why not, it is easy to grow and pretty difficult to kill, it will grow back each year with no issue, but does need to be kept in check unless you only want Borage in the garden.