The Hippest way to spend the day

Rose hips, that is.

This year, our Rosa Rugosa bushes kicked out an incredible number of these gorgeous globs of reddish-orange happiness.

Apparently, all parts of all roses are edible (except, of course, those that have been chemically treated with pesticides and such), including these funny little gifts of fruit.

What's this have to do with the way to spend a day? Well, today is my first day of summer. It's the first day that I'm off of work, the sun is blazing, the garden is booming and I have the entire day to do whatever I please.

So while I sipped on my second cup of morning coffee, I made a do-list of sorts:

And at the top, as you can see, is "make rose hip jam" and tell y'all about it. So I set out to pick the lot of them and get started.

A thorn in my plans?

Every rose has it's thorn?

A thorn by any other name still makes you bleed?

Well, lookout, anyway, when you pick these pretty suckers. I got a little carried away once or twice when I saw a particularly pretty berry and now I have perforated fingers.

I picked a bunch:

They're so pretty!

Next step: process. Rose hips are funny little beings. They have these giant sepals that create a stiff crown at one end, and the other end is where the spikes begin. Both of these have to be removed before you can proceed.

Here are the rose hips floating in rinse water after I sliced off the crowns. 

 Next step: seeds. Not just a few seeds, either. Copious amounts of furry, nasty, inedible and irritating seeds. 

Many sources direct you to cut each rose hip open and manually scrape them all out. But that would literally take you all day for 8 cups of fruit.

For example, these seeds all came out of one fruit:

So I have better way.  Stick the suckers in a blender with a bunch of water (you'll have to do this in batches), blend on low for about 10 seconds or so to chop up the fruits (without chopping the seeds too much) and go check your e-mail.

I mean, do something for a minute or so while the mixture separates out because, viola, the seeds float!

At this stage, you can spoon them off the top. A nice tip is when you're struggling to get the last few seeds, fill the blender to the top with water and scrape them off the surface with your fingers.

I filled this bowl with seeds from all the rose hips:

You can bet that those did not go in my compost pile.

After all that blending and seperating and skimming, you're left with this:

Which you then pour into a pot with the water you used to blend and boil it up for a long time.

Ah! Added bonus. I was hot and inspired, or just perspired, and desired some sweet iced tea. Instead of reaching for the mint tea bags, I took some water from my mixture here, strained off the pulp, sweetened it and poured it over ice. 

So, so good.
Guaranteed to satisfy your thirst and vitamin C requirement for a month.

At some point in all the boiling (after about an hour, I'd say), I added a bunch of sugar and some lemon juice. While that was going, I sterilized my jars

After it got to the jamming stage (a little after this picture was taken) I scooped it into the jars, screwed the lids on tight and processed them in a hot water bath for about 15 minutes.

I didn't add any pectin or gelatin so we'll find out how well it gels, but it sure is pretty!

This process takes a while, so I took advantage of the downtime and baked a loaf of bread to enjoy when the jam cools down. The recipe for this no-knead bread is in my archives.

But I caution you against trying it unless you don't mind gaining 10 pounds in a month. :)

I'll report back when we crack open the first jar!

A few things have happened since the last post. For brevity's sake, I'll make the review short (and full of pictures) and go back only as far as last Tuesday . . . November 4.

Bright and early, we did this:
Then I worked like a crazy person taking pictures and doing a video about other people doing exactly that same thing.

And then this happened:

And then I stayed up all night shooting and editing this:


And then I did this for about 20 hours:
And then today, I went outside to find this:(Oh, yeah. . . I have a garden!)

So that's what I've been up to, and that's why I haven't written. Seeing that I work for a news organization, I cannot mention my feelings about the outcome of the election, except to state several facts. This is history, and whatever your feelings about the promised "change," -- well, change has already occurred. Both of those things are incredibly positive developments, and that's all I'll say about that.

Back to the garden, my little squares of non-partisan dirt that at the same time speak volumes about my politics.

Last weekend, I painted the inside of the coldframes white (using non-toxic, no-VOC paint) so they can make the most of the limited winter sunlight. That paint, by the way, is massively expensive! $26 for a small can!Then, Erik and I sealed the joints and screw holes with clear silicone so they'll cold up for several seasons in the rain. They are also stained and sealed on the outside to protect the wood.

Each night, if it looks like the temperatures will dip near freezing, we place the windows on top and close them. But if the weather is balmy and wet (as it's been for about 4 days here now), I just take the tops off entirely. Unless it's really cold, I leave the windows open so air can circulate. As the days get colder, I'll adjust this, and perhaps only leave the windows ajar during the sunniest hours. Again, learning as I go here -- advice is welcome, if you've got some!

It's been several weeks now with the cold frames, and the plants seem to love them. The lettuce has gone nuts:So is the Swiss chard:And we're getting little baby turnips (? - forgot to remember what I planted there - could be radishes, but I don't think so)Speaking of radishes, I went to check on them, and !#&@^#*#*@(@!!!!!!This little jerk is responsible:And this is how I feel:So I dusted off the ravished radish -and ate it.

Good news about the brussels sprouts! Remember this plant that would not, could not, mature so I chopped off its head?Well, now the sprouts have filled out. I think we're going to make then into dinner soon.There were two cantaloupes that hung on late in the season, though they remained tiny. I've left them on the vine in the hope that they'd get a little bigger, but to no avail. So today I plucked them from their home and introduced them to my kitchen knife.They weren't very good.

The composter in the front is just about ready.
And the back composter is full of the tomato, bean and pepper plants I tore up in the rear garden.Speaking of the rear garden, I decided that next year, it's going to be the dedicated vine and tomato spot. The tomatoes did great there this year (especially the Brandywines) and the purple pole beans - oh my. However, the one thing that all the vining plants needed was more support, so we (actually, Erik will) are going to build a trellis that stretches from the fence to the roof of the adjacent garage.
(like my illustration?)

And while I'm sharing my plans for next season, here's the area where we're (actually, Erik will - again) going to build the chicken run:I'm about out of updates, and both the cat and the husband are snoring, so I think I'll wrap up with some pretty pictures of rose hips, which I may harvest tomorrow to make jam.Th-th-that's all folks!!