All About Borage
Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems — by Kelly Pagliaro January 21, 2011
Photos by Kelly Pagliaro unless otherwise indicated
Beautiful. Traditional. Functional. Therapeutic. What am I talking about you say? Why borage of course!
Borage is a wonderful plant to have around the garden. Borage (Borago officinalis), also known as starflower, bee bush, bee bread, and bugloss, is a medicinal herb with edible leaves and flowers. In my garden, borage and sunflowers share the honor of being bee hot-spots.
Exhibit ‘A’
It’s not only a favorite plant of the honey bees, but also bumble bees and small, native bees. It has served many purposes from the time of ancient Rome to the present. Pliny the Elder believed it to be an anti-depressant, and it has long been thought to give courage and comfort to the heart. One old wives’ tale states that if a woman slipped a bit of borage into a promising man’s drink, it would give him the courage to propose. At one time it was grown by beekeepers to boost honey production. It can be, and has been grown as an ornamental plant, but is also edible and medicinal. You could say that borage is a sort of super plant.
Exhibit ‘B’, from down in Melbourne, on the other side of the world
This photo © Craig Mackintosh
With a taste comparable to that of cucumber, borage has various culinary applications. The leaves can of course be used as a salad green and the flowers as edible decorations, but to stop there would be an insult to the wide variety of uses for borage. This herb can be used in soups, salads, borage-lemonade, strawberry-borage cocktails, preserves, borage jelly, various sauces, cooked as a stand-alone vegetable, or used in desserts in the form of fresh or candied flowers, to name a few.
Borage ice cubes; the perfect way to chill your borage lemonade
This herb is also the highest known plant source of gamma-linolenic acid (an Omega 6 fatty acid, also known as GLA) and the seed oil is often marketed as a GLA supplement. It is also a source of B vitamins, beta-carotene, fiber, choline, and, again, trace minerals. In alternative medicine it is used for stimulating breast milk production and as an adrenal gland tonic; thus it can be used to relieve stress.
In the garden, the uses of borage include repelling pests such as hornworms, attracting pollinators, and aiding any plants it is interplanted with by increasing resistance to pests and disease. It is also helpful to, and compatible with, most plants — notably tomatoes, strawberries and squash. Borage adds trace minerals to the soil it is planted in, and is good for composting and mulching. It is an annual, but readily self-seeds and thrives in full sun. It is so proficient in self-seeding, in fact, that once a borage plant has established itself in your garden, you will likely never have to reseed again. The bloom period is different for various climates and growing zones. In our garden, borage will bloom from mid-spring to early fall.
Now if I’ve done my job, by this time you should be thinking, “This is amazing! How in the world do I grow this miracle plant for myself?” It’s quite simple actually. Seeds are best sown in full or partial sun under ½ inch (1 cm) of soil so it’s easy to sprinkle a patch with seeds and then cover it with a few handfuls of soil or compost. The plants can easily grow to be 3 feet (91 cm) tall and 2 feet (61 cm) wide, so give them room to grow, and let them shade your partial sun plants. Treat this easy-to-keep herb well and it will reward you with scores of beautiful flowers, lush foliage, and fertile soils.
Happy planting!
Exhibit ‘C’, from down in Melbourne, on the other side of the world
This photo © Craig Mackintosh
I made a wonderful borage ale this year, just borage and brown sugar. It tastes like peaches!
Comment by Milton — January 21, 2011 @ 2:44 am
I actually would be somewhat careful with consuming larger amounts of borage. It’s a relative of comfrey (both in the family of the Boraginaceae), and for both, their pyrrolizidine alkaloid content may become an issue when consumed in quantity.
See e.g.: http://www.springerlink.com/content/ag1r362101×20824/
Comment by Thomas Fischbacher — January 21, 2011 @ 3:29 am
Great work Kelly. Keep it coming. This is the sort of infomation this site needs on a much regular basis.
Comment by Nick Huggins — January 21, 2011 @ 5:17 am
We were growing some borage last year, but didn’t know what it was and carefully ate some leaves with our salad (since it grew in our salad bed). Ours never flowered before it froze, it was growing in the north bed and was probably planted very late in the season.
I already started seedlings in the greenhouse from the leftover seeds. They’re just getting their first true leaves and are the best looking seedlings among the many salads we started – hope they don’t freeze, such a cold winter this year. I’m really looking forward to the flowers!
I do appreciate the warning link posted by Thomas, won’t be eating it by the pound.
Great article!
Comment by Christine Baker — January 21, 2011 @ 12:34 pm
Thanks for the great article Kelly! I’m off to get me some Borage. Oh, and I believe the issues with comfrey are debatable, I have it in a smoothie every morning.
Comment by Belinda — January 21, 2011 @ 2:31 pm
I agree Nick. I want more of this kind of information. In fact, so much so, that we pay for articles (see ‘write for us’ advert on our sidebar). In fact, we paid Kelly for this article.
Comment by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor — January 22, 2011 @ 3:21 am
where can i get those seeds and can i grow them in the tropics a.k.a Colombia?
Comment by Daniel — January 22, 2011 @ 5:38 am
I have seen it advertised as suitable for temperate and sub-tropical climates. Seeds are not hard to find.
Comment by Julie Pagliaro — January 22, 2011 @ 10:39 am
My FAVORITE Salad
Soak a hand full of raisin in orange juice ? (or half an hour)
while you grate a Large carrot
Mix all together place in a glass bowl ?????
and sprinkle a dozen or so BORAGE Flower’s on top
Comment by Jennifer Reid — January 23, 2011 @ 4:03 pm
Fabulous article thank you Kelly. And thank you to Jennifer for the salad recipe
I first grew Borage from the Diggers club seeds a few years ago….they now self seed readily all through my garden and are happily shared with the chooks and the pigs!
Comment by Michelle — January 24, 2011 @ 1:36 pm
Here is more information about gamma-linolenic acid: http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/gamma-linolenic-000305.htm
From the article:
“A healthy diet contains a balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids help reduce inflammation, and some omega-6 fatty acids tend to promote inflammation. The typical American diet tends to contain 14 – 25 times more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3 fatty acids.”
In Norwegian Borage is called Agurkurt. Here is a really good site in Scandinavian language about Agurkurt (and other herbs): http://rolv.no/urtemedisin/medisinplanter/bora_off.htm
Comment by Øyvind Holmstad — January 24, 2011 @ 11:36 pm
Great article Kelly! It appears very well researched and I like your sense of humor. Great photo’s too.
My experience with the larger fresh leaves is that they are a bit too hairy to eat raw. We use the dry leaves in tea mixes. The dry hairs irritate my skin topically as well so I make sure I don’t let them brush my arms while processing them.
My personal opinion regarding the PA’s would be to research more….There are varying opinions about the PA’s in Comfrey (leaf vs. root; plants that go dormant vs. those that do not, etc.) and just b/c it’s in the same family does not necessarily mean it also contains them. I have not heard of it doing so, but have not researched it either.
I look forward to more of your articles.
Comment by James Flocchini — July 14, 2011 @ 3:30 pm
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment