So, as promised, here’s the long post with lots of pictures about our guerrilla gardening and processing rose hips.
Why rose hips? There have been actual double-blind scientific studies that show that rose hips are good for inflammation. One of the lovely side effects from the weird hormones that I’m currently suffering from is inflammation. I’ve started taking turmeric, which helps, but taking turmeric as well as drinking rose hip tea is much more effective for me. YMMV.
So we decided to go and get ourselves some rose hips, so I can have tea whenever I want.
First, we went to an area that has a long stretch of ferrel roses. They smell heavenly. When they’re all in bloom, it’s like walking through a tunnel of that heady rose scent.
We clipped a bunch of the hips, trimming them as best we could as we selected them. The color variation was amazing, from deep purple to cherry red tomato to bright orange.
I took them home, cleaned them, trimmed the ones that needed it a bit more, then put them into the food dehydrator. It took a couple days to get them hard.
You can make tea from the solid dried hips. No more processing is necessary. However, according to the internets, you get better results as well as better taste if you process the hips just a bit more.
So next, I put the dried rose hips into the food processor. I did them in small batches because the next step involves a sieve, and I didn’t want to break the hips apart too much, so that the pieces would fall through the mesh.
Poured each batch into the sieve and shook. A lot.
You see those tiny hairs and dust? The internets describe it as “irritating.” OMG. That stuff is toxic. It’s as bad as fiberglass insulation. I ended up stripping off all my clothes directly into the washer, then taking a shower in order to get all those hairs off. They were really bad for my skin.
Which was also why I did the processing in small batches, so I could make damned sure that I got rid of as many hairs as I could.
Then, I have the final product! Dried rose hips with seeds in a jar. Will let y’all know how the tea and/or oil works next.
Lots of pictures under the cut.
Long stretch of roses near us. Between a quarter to half mile long.
Rose hips in the wild! You’ll see that there are green hips as well as red hips in this picture.
Rose hips after being trimmed and washed. Notice the color variation, from bright red to orange to purple.
Rose hips after they’ve dried. Most have turned a deep red color. They’re hard little balls.
After drying, I processed the rose hips in small batches in the food processor. You don’t want to grind them too finely, but enough to break them apart and separate out the seeds and the irritating hairs.
After you break up the rose hips, put them into a sieve and shake out the irritating hairs. Shake a lot. The hairs are really irritating.
These hairs really are irritating. As bad as fiberglass insulation.
Finished product! Rose hips with seeds. All ready for tea or oil or what have you.