Garden Centre

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Autumn’s bounty

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun …

As Keats so truly said. There was a time when gardeners had a fetish about cutting every rosehip out of their gardens, to produce more flowers the following year, but now most of us are content to leave some hips for the birds and for winter colour.

Hips

These are aggregate fruit of the rose plant, consisting of several dry fruitlets enclosed by the enlarged, fleshy, usually red floral cup. Though too tart to eat raw, the ripe reddish-orange fruit of the rose is often used to make jellies and jams, syrup, tea and wine. Because they're an excellent source of vitamin C, rose hips are also dried and ground into powder and sold in natural food stores. Rosehip syrup was an important source of vitamin C for children during World War II and English children were paid three pence for a pound of rosehips which were then turned into Delrosa rosehip syrup. As many will remember, this brand of rosehip syrup was supplied to new mothers for their children up until the 1970s. You can make your own:

Rosehip Syrup

Pick a kilo of rosehips and place them in a large pan holding three pints of boiling water. Bring back to boil, remove from heat and let stand for ten minutes. Strain through a jelly bag (or a clean old pillowcase that you don’t want to use again) for about four hours. Return the strained liquid to pan with another pint of boiling water. Re-boil and allow to stand as before, strain. Pour into a clean pan, reduce by boiling until juice measures about a pint and a half to which you should add half a kilo of sugar. Stir over gentle heat until sugar dissolves, then boil for 5 minutes. Pour into hot bottles, seal. Once opened, this syrup goes off in a week or ten days, so choose small bottles or plan to use it up fast!

And Haws

The Haw is a small, oval dark red fruit about 1 cm long, berry-like, but structurally only containing a single seed. Haws are important for wildlife in winter, particularly birds which eat the haws and disperse the seeds in their droppings.

Haw Vodka

Pick berries, wash gently and dry .

Fill a small jar two thirds full of berries and then pour in 80% proof vodka to fill it to the brim and seal tightly. Leave to steep for six weeks in a darkened area (not full sun which makes it go brown and horrible looking) but at normal room temperature, shaking gently once a week.

Strain through a paper coffee filter into a clean bottle or jar and leave to mature for at least a couple of months (again in a darkened area at room temperature) before serving.

Labels: garden flowers, garden plants, garden recipes

The All Seasons Gardener at 1:04 PM

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