Saturday, November 28, 2009

Fruit of the rose

My wild Arizona rose was covered with its single pink blossoms early this summer; which led in due time to an equal number of fruit, called rose hips. Old fashioned folk made jelly and teas from rose hips; the herbally conscious make all manner of medicinal concoctions, from syrups to powders.

I promised my crop, once ripe, to Georgene to make into a syrup, chock-a-block full of vitamin C (rose hips beat citrus fruits on that count).

Not a bad haul from one plant, eh?

And here is the final product -- a honey and rose hip syrup. Quite yummy. If you also have a productive rose bush, here are some recipes.

Linkage: One doesn't expect to hear about floods in Jeddah; in fact, residents of the Arabian city are ill prepared for a major rainfall. Fortunately, Susie of Arabia was out with her camera to get pictures of this highly unexpected weather. This interesting woman, incidentally, was once a Prescottonian. Next -- a forthright discussion of the problem of dying aspen in the higher elevations around Flagstaff; it would seem that the immediate culprit is the huge increase in number of elk, caused, in turn by the lack of predators and the prevalence of water thanks to stock tanks.

7 comments:

Antipodean Curmudgeon said...

That rose is pretty prickley--did you lose and blood? Or wear gauntlets.

Hermano

Antipodean Curmudgeon said...

Correction: any for and.

H

Lucy said...

It's one of my favourite jellies, though you need to add some apples for the pectin. The big fat rugosa rose hips are very good. I imagine the honey complements the flavour beautifully. I've got some rosehip schnapps steeping in the cupboard as an experiment, though I'm not convinced it smells ver nice, some honey might be the thing for that.

Anonymous said...

When backpacking in the fall months, we use to make wild rose hip and ephedra tea.

Kept us warm and alive when the weather dropped below 32 degrees F.

~Anon in AV.

Jules said...

Beautiful! Are you enjoying the cold this morning Granny? It's 45 degrees down here in the valley. Colder than I like to tolerate.

My own garden boasts broccoli, brussel sprouts, pomegrant, grapes and still radishes this time of year! It's been an amazing growing season.

Happy Sunday!

Anonymous said...

Sounds, and looks, yummy! I've heard of rose hips from vitamin C products, but never really 'seen' them before.
That's something one doesn't usually associate with roses, due to the romantic imagery, I guess.

Good pics.

Granny J said...

bro -- hah! I let Georgene do the clipping; I think that after the rose hips finished steeping, the liquid was put through a cloth strainer.

lucy -- rose hips schnapps -- a fine idea!

anon av -- now there's an idea for warming up.

jules -- well, down in the valley you have veggies, up here in the mountains we have seasons.

decker -- rose hips are really quite spectacular on my wild bush, as there are so many. And such a nice bright red, too. And, yes, full of Vitamin C.

 
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