Rose hips and excellent source of vitamin C

It's time to get out and pick those rose hips at least it is in my neck of the woods.  The best time to pick your rose hips is after a good frost.  Once you have picked your rose hips you can use them to make puree, jelly, or wine.  I like to make the puree and then use that later to make BBQ sauce.

These berries have so much vitamin C in them that 6 - 8 berries will give you your daily requirements.

After you have picked your rose hips, wash and remove the tassels.  In order to preserve as much vitamin C as possible you need to process the hips as soon as possible.
If you are going to be making syrups or jellies extract the juice by partly covering the hips with water, bring to a boil and allow to cook for approximately 15 minutes.  Extract the juice by putting into a jelly bag and dripping over a container.  You can make jelly with the rose hips alone or add other fruit to it.

For pulp I use a sieve to remove the seeds and skins.  This can then be used for making jams.  I have also made a rose hip ketchup that was really quite good.

Some people also dry the rose hips.  I have not done this but the process is simple.  Cut the rose hips in two and remove the seeds.  Then dry in a food dehydrator or in the over at 140 degrees.  Dried rose hips can be added to your baking, cereals, salads etc.

You can find some recipes in the recipe section of this blog.

Enjoy your rose hip harvest!

Deer Tolerant Plants

If you have deer problems, here are a few plants that are deer tolerant.
Lady's Mantle,
Butterfly Weed
Foxglove
St. Johns Wart
Lavender
Daffodil
Poppy

Happy Gardening ♥

Harvesting the crops

Well once again I had good intentions on keeping this blog up to date............yesterday I harvested the rest of the beets, some more carrots and the ever growing broccoli.  Tomorrow I'll be pickling the beets. 

The Garden's almost planted

The Garden is 3/4 planted and then the rains came.  I'm hoping to get out there soon and finish planting, but with all the rain we have had it's pretty wet around here.  They have another rainfall warning out for today.  Hopefully it will rain it self out today and the sun will shine again soon.

The old and new greenhouse

The old greenhouse had lived it's life and was taken down in the spring.  Today we have a machine in to clean up the area and to level off an area closer to the vegetable garden for the new greenhouse. This is an exciting day!
I'll have to post some pics later.

Zucchini and Cucumbers are getting bigger every day

The Zucchini and Cucumbers that I started are growing more every day.  I'll wait until June 1st to plant them out in the garden.  Just in case we get another frost.  Actually everything in the greenhouse is doing well and  I'll start planting the garden tomorrow.

Today I got my flower pots ready to go outside, planted some hanging baskets and have some ready to plant in the flower garden.  Tomorrow should be a busy day.

Cold weather today

It wasn't even warm enough to open the greenhouse up today.  It poured rain most of the day,
I know we need the rain, but it could have been a little warmer.