How to Harvest Squash Blossoms

Summer squash often yield large harvests, leaving you with too many squash and not enough recipes to use them. Nip this problem in the bud by pulling off the blossoms from before they produce fruit. The harvested squash blossoms are entirely edible and ideal for adding to salads, stuffing with meat or cream cheese, or lightly battering and deep-frying.

Pruning shears

Instructions

- 1
  Look for the male squash blossoms for harvest. Identify these by their thinner stems and the lack of a bulb below the flower that is a baby squash on the female blossoms. Pick female flowers if you want to thin the plant and reduce the number of fruit the plant produces. Both male and female blooms are edible.
- 2
  Harvest squash blossoms at mid-morning after the dew has evaporated and the blooms are still open.
- 3
  Cut 1 inch below the stem on the flowers.
- 4
  Rinse the blossoms in running water.
- 5
  Store the harvested squash blossoms in the refrigerator submerged in ice water for one to two days.

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