The flowers are not prickly and are edible. Use the flowers - salads, drinks, garnishes, etc.

Borage is an annual but is a very effective self-seeder. I like borage in the veggie beds because bees love the copious amounts of flowers it produces.

FataMorgana

The very youngest new leaves aren't too hairy for eating, but they still need chopping fairly finely to add to a salad or whatever.

As for recipes - plenty out their in WWW-land.

Here is a link that might be useful: borage recipes

I may start plucking to get some of the new leaves for salad, is so, they will get their own bed.

I'll wait for the flowers to try out for herbal tea, I spend a lot on herbal teas, so this could be a nice free source of something that tastes good. That's what gardens are supposed to do, grow your food or drink.

Thanks for the help, so I could just use the borage in place of spinach in dip, or make a borage and potato gnocci. I've never made gnocci, but I've read about them and have a few recipes I meant to try.

Thanks for the suggestions and I love www-land. They were the source for most of my seeds.

PS.

The smaller ones had a fish taste to them and the bigger ones tasted better, but dryer. I think I'll wait for the flowers. They all still taste better than a raw piece of spinach or turnip green. In fact even better than some of the leaf lettuces I have growing.

Same here, my Borage leaves tasted like cod liver oil, although I did taste a hint of cucumber. Don't see how one can eat the leaves fresh with all the prickly hairs on them. The flowers are an intense blue though.

I'll wait for the flowers. I have another one in my yard with yellowish, pinkish flowers, but I didn't plant those. I'm sure they are the same thing, but maybe different, still glossy leaves, not the fuzzy ones.

The leaves dried would probably make a nice tea mixed with something else, or maybe on its own. The lady who lived here before me tossed herbs out left and right, so maybe she had the same thought. She liked herbs too. I'll get a picture of both, her's or the wild ones are already grown and about to flower where these are growing where I planted them and are just getting a 2nd and 3rd set of leaves. I had no idea I had the same thing, but anyways, I'll collect the flowers off those too.

If it has yellowish/pinkish flowers it is definitely not borage. If you post a pic on Name that Plant maybe we can id it for you. Don't eat it til you know for sure what it is. The classic use for borage flowers over here is floating in a jug of cold Pimms.

Here is a link that might be useful:

All white blooms or the occasional pink blossom on the normal blue borage plants sure but definitely not yellowish pink with glossy leaves. It is something else. Picture please! :)

FataMorgana

ps.....the Pimms looks good!

Excuse what I said, I confused borage with the mullein I was speaking of in another thread. I have a photo of the wild mullein, but it's not useful here.

I'm sorry. There is only a few borage plants in my yard and I planted them myself.