The three most important things to remember are 1. Pick it early in the spring before it starts showing any purple, 2. Parboil at least once and discard the water, and 3. DON'T EAT THE ROOT.

There are a lot of really good recipes on the internet.

The message about about how to eat a plant is NOT for lupines! It was meant as a followup to a discussion aobut poke plant, which is edible in its young stage.

Hope no one tried to eat a lupine because of my post!

Molly

Liz: Are you asking if planting vegetables and fruits near toxic plants will make the vegetables poisonous? If so, don't worry. It won't. You can plant them as close as you like. Just don't harvest and eat your toxic plants by mistake!

Molly,

There is a lupine with big white edible seeds which are sold for sprouting, but you're right about avoiding lupines otherwise. At certain stages, many are quite toxic. I would not try eating other lupine seeds, either.

I guess it would depend on if you have kids or not. If its all adults and teens it doesnt really matter for most ornamentals, including lupines. If you have kids under about 10 don't put them anywhere near each other. Kids are just too impulsive about trying things out. I'm slowly changing over an old neglected property and this summer caught my 6 year old just before he ate berries from lily-of-the valley(toxic with cardiac affects). He thought they were o.k. because they grew under the mulberry tree. Early in the year they where overshadowed by other safe plants and I didn't even realize they were there.