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Fruit of the rose yields delicious treat

Recipe: Rose hip jelly tastes (surprise!) like hibiscus

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Make a small batch of jelly from the garden. The rose is Rainbow Sorbet, a floribunda,
one of many used in this jelly. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)
It’s harvest time in the rose garden. A byproduct of annual pruning: Rose hips.

Rose hips
Rose hips come in many shapes and sizes.
Rose hips are the fruit of the rose and are packed with flavor and vitamin C. A cup of raw rose hips contains 12 times as much vitamin C as a whole orange.
In nature, rose hips are deer candy. Deer can’t resist these little red or orange nuggets. (That’s why rose bushes have sharp prickles: so hungry animals won’t eat the whole plant.)
It’s not surprising that rose hips are tasty. Roses come from the same family as apples, pears, quinces, loquats, almonds, peaches, apricots, plums and cherries.
But rose hips don’t taste like roses – or any of those other fruit. They have a more tropical taste similar to hibiscus, the main flavoring of Red Zinger tea (which also contains rose hips).
Speaking of Red Zinger, the most common use of rose hips is dried in tea. Trimmed hips can be dried quickly in a dehydrator or slowly on a windowsill.
If you have a lot of rose hips, consider making rose hip jelly. Use only hips from roses that are pesticide free; in particular, don’t use hips from roses treated with systemic pesticides. (The chemicals find their way into all parts of the plant.)
Rose hips have little or no natural pectin. That’s where their cousin apples come in. In this recipe, apples add some natural pectin as well as making up for lack of fresh rose hips.
The result is a flavorful jelly that tastes like a spoonful of tropical sunshine. Who knew it came from a rose garden?

Trimmed rose hips
The rose hips are trimmed for the recipe.
Rose hip jelly
Makes about 4 half-pints

Ingredients:

4 cups rose hips and apples
6 cups water plus more as needed
½ cup lemon juice
6 tablespoons (1 package) powdered pectin
¼ teaspoon butter
3-1/2 cups sugar

Instructions:

With a sharp paring knife, trim rose hips, removing stem and calyx (the pointy crown) on the blossom end. Rinse.
Measure trimmed rose hips. Remove stems from apples, but don’t peel or core. Quarter apples. Add enough apples to rose hips to bring total to 4 cups prepared fruit. Mixture should be primarily rose hips, but include at least two apples.
In a large heavy pot, put prepared rose hips and apples. Add 6 cups water. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to simmer. Cook on gentle heat until rose hips are soft and mashable, about an hour. Add more water if needed as rose hips and apples cook.
With a potato masher, mash rose hips and apples. Transfer mashed fruit to a jelly bag and let juice drip into a large bowl or 1-quart measuring cup. You need 2-1/2 cups juice; add up to ½ cup water to reach that total.
Rinse out the heavy pot and return juice to pot. Add lemon juice, pectin and butter (which helps prevent foaming). Bring to a boil.
Add sugar all at once. Return to full boil and boil mixture 1 minute. If using a candy thermometer, mix
Jars
Pectin from the apples help the jelly gel.
ture should reach 220 degrees F.
Skim off any foam. Ladle hot mixture into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch head space, and seal.
Process jars in hot-water bath 10 minutes. Cool and store.
Note: If not processed in hot-water bath, store jelly in the refrigerator for up to one month or freeze.

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RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

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Garden Checklist for week of June 15

Make the most of this “average” weather; your garden is growing fast! (So are the weeds!)

* Warm weather brings rapid growth in the vegetable garden, with tomatoes and squash enjoying the heat. Deep-water, then feed with a balanced fertilizer. Bone meal can spur the bloom cycle and help set fruit.

* Generally, tomatoes need deep watering two to three times a week, but don’t let them dry out completely. That can encourage blossom-end rot.

* From seed, plant corn, melons, pumpkins, radishes, squash and sunflowers.

* Plant basil to go with your tomatoes.

* Transplant summer annuals such as petunias, marigolds and zinnias. It’s also a good time to transplant perennial flowers including astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia, salvia and verbena.

* Pull weeds before they go to seed.

* Let the grass grow longer. Set the mower blades high to reduce stress on your lawn during summer heat. To cut down on evaporation, water your lawn deeply during the wee hours of the morning, between 2 and 8 a.m.

* Tie up vines and stake tall plants such as gladiolus and lilies. That gives their heavy flowers some support.

* Dig and divide crowded bulbs after the tops have died down.

* Feed summer flowers with a slow-release fertilizer.

* Mulch, mulch, mulch! This “blanket” keeps moisture in the soil longer and helps your plants cope during hot weather. It also helps smother weeds.

* Thin grapes on the vine for bigger, better clusters later this summer.

* Cut back fruit-bearing canes on berries.

* Feed camellias, azaleas and other acid-loving plants. Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce heat stress.

* Cut back Shasta daisies after flowering to encourage a second bloom in the fall.

* Trim off dead flowers from rose bushes to keep them blooming through the summer. Roses also benefit from deep watering and feeding now. A top dressing of aged compost will keep them happy. It feeds as well as keeps roots moist.

* Pinch back chrysanthemums for bushier plants with many more flowers in September.

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