Harvesting Rose Hips For Future Use: Harvesting

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Everyone knows that rose hips contain a huge amount of vitamin C, so everyone who uses herbs or herbal teas for treatment (and it's just nice to drink tea with the aroma of herbs and berries in winter) needs to stock up on this healthy berry in time

Harvest time

In each region, the dates for collecting rose hips are different, since in different corners it ripens at different times. For example, in central Russia, you can collect rose hips from the end of August, and in the southern part - from the beginning. By the way, the earlier you collect, the more vitamin C it contains, the later, the more sugar there (harvested in October is sweeter than harvested in August). It is possible to determine the ripe by the sepal, at the moment of the ripeness of the fruit it is, as it were, protruding.

You can also pick berries from the moment of technical maturity, without looking at the calendar. The berries should be bright orange or red, fairly firm, with no signs of spoilage or disease.

If you follow the national calendar, then harvesting should begin after October 1, since this day was considered the day of Arina Rosevnitsa. Our great-grandmothers believed that only after this day the rose hips become the most useful.

Determine the date of collection on your own, the main thing is dry and clear weather and good mood.

How and where to collect rose hips?

Try to choose places away from highways and roads, since there will be no benefit in such a rosehip, but it is quite possible for them to get poisoned, since it easily absorbs all harmful substances. Give preference to a bush that stands as far from the road as possible, preferably growing anywhere in a park, in a forest or in a field. That is, in an ecologically clean area. Let not ideal, but at least without the absence of exhaust gases from passing cars.

The whole rosehip is harvested, together with the sepal and peduncle, which are removed later, after drying or before freezing. Harvesting with "garbage" in the form of a stalk and sepal will save the berries from the loss of vitamins, for which the rose hips are harvested. Tear off the berries carefully without damaging them. If you use special devices for harvesting, then upon arrival home, be sure to sort out the berries and destroy the sick and infected with pests.

Assistants in collecting rose hips

Everyone knows that picking rose hips by hand is not an easy task, requiring perseverance, free time and the desire to stock up on berries, picking them off one by one and putting them in a prepared container. But progress does not stand still, and now there are several simple devices that can greatly facilitate this painstaking work. To facilitate and speed up the process, you need to take care of purchasing the following assistants in advance:

- gloves. They are needed in order not to injure your hands with the sharp thorns of the bush. It is advisable to buy gloves that are dense and high, covering the hands as much as possible. Now on sale there are gloves for pruning roses: dense, rubber-coated, completely protecting against the possibility of pricking against a bush;

- a scoop for picking berries. In fact, it resembles the most common household garbage scoop, but much smaller and with special long teeth at the edges. Thanks to these cloves, the rose hips can be collected easily and quickly;

- rakes for picking berries. They also resemble in appearance a scoop with long teeth, but the handle is located on the other side. With their help, the rosehip can be collected without bending over, but when collecting, you immediately need to substitute the container;

- manual harvester for picking berries. This is perhaps the most convenient device. It resembles a scoop with a lid that will help prevent berries from falling out of the container.

In the next article I will talk about harvesting and storing rose hips.