Rose hips

One thing I always loved about autumn in Switzerland- the hedges full of bright red rose hips. My mother buys a puree of rose hips from a farmer in her surrounding and makes a delicious jam out of it.

Usually you would collect the rose hips of the dog rose (rosa canina), but actually you can use rose hips from all kinds of roses. 

Rose hips have a very high level of vitamin C.

In the Kibbutz they used to grow a lot of roses. Unfortunately roses are not the best plant to have in public gardening in our climate and circumstances. They do need quite a lot of water and a lot of care. Today only in a few places some patches of old roses are left. Most of them have wonderful fragrances.

Usually I would prune the wilted flowers, but in one patch I noticed that the roses produce nice rose hips- so I left the flowers and just shook off the wilted petals. I started to collect some of the rose hips and cut them, removed the seeds and hairs and dried them for tea.

I read that you can actually dry them whole. I did not try that one yet- although I guess the hot and dry weather would have done the job pretty fast.

I also like to dry the petals of the fragrant roses and use them for tea. It's said that they have relaxing benefits.

I started to draw again... hopefully will keep it up.