Drying Sitka Rose Petals For Tea And Other Things
.JPG)
I know, I know, I should be rejoicing at the endless falling sky liquid, and really, I am thankful for the rain. It's just that it is JUNE! And it has been a long, long year so far, and I would really, really like to see some blue sky instead of perpetual gray! And no, I am NOT WHINING!
Okay, so I might be whining a little bit. It's just that there is so much work that I want to get done around the farm, and like it or not I don't have gills and I am most certainly not waterproof. Ooh, there's some Christmas wish list items right there!
Anyway, one nice side effect of all this never-ending moisture is that I have a bumper crop of flowers starting to bloom out. One crop in particular is making me stop and smell the fantastic, the Sitka roses are exploding into full flower bloomage around here!
.JPG)
Sitka, aka Rosa Rugosa, is a naturalized species of rose in my part of the world. Every year towards the end of spring my realm gets a little pink around the edges. Rosa Rugosa grows everywhere! On the edge of roads, in old clear cuts, and even in my yard! It is a vigorous, suckering vine of awesomeness. Your children can annihilate the shrub with a weed whacker and it will return to it's former glory with an almost smug I will survive growth pattern. Heck, the rose in my yard endured multiple goat massacres over the years, only to be the last man standing as I got smart and got rid of my heathen goat herd a few years ago.
Why do I like the almost invasive roses so much? Well, aside from the fact that they smell good and they look pretty, I also use the heck out of them! Yesterday while I was cooking dinner I asked my lovely and non-sassy daughter to pick me a colander full of petals. I love to make my own herbal tea mixes, and dried Rugosa Rose petals add this delicate floral hint of flavor to tea blends. When my over active brain needs the equivalent to a deep tissue massage of relaxation, I walk back to my catastro-pantry (It truly is an unorganized disaster), grab some dried lavender and dried rose petals, and make me a cup of kick my brain out of overdrive and chill girl brew.
.JPG)
Drying the rose petals is a pretty straight forward process. My spunky spawn returned with a wire egg basket full of the reminiscent of eighties cheek blush colored petals. I promptly gave them a rinse and spread them in single layers on my dehydrator trays. No, I don't have an Excalibur dehydrator. I have wanted one for years, but alas, it has not materialized as of yet. I use my inexpensive stack-able dehydrator that I got from Cabelas on clearance.
.JPG)
Before I became an almost once percenter and purchased a dehydrator I used old window screens that I sanitized to dry my herbs. Truth be told, I dry my herbs a bunch of different ways, bunched and hanging, on screens, in the dehydrator. The key is airflow, warm dry temps, and not drying in the sunlight.
.JPG)
Back to the petals. once I had them all spread on the trays, I plugged the dehydrator in for four hours, just to get the party started because the petals were a little wet, and moisture=mold. A lot of the time I will just spread the herbs in the trays, forget to turn the dehydrator on, and a week or two later be pleasantly surprised with perfectly dried herbs. Life is good.
In a future post I will show ya'll the end product and share my recipe for super calming Lavender Rose, Knock Yer Cares To The Curb, tea!
TOO. MUCH. RAIN! The rain has made mush of all my rose petals. Now I wait for the hips which is what I mainly harvest from them each year. Seems like a much easier flower to dry than the darn lilacs since the petals are so much bigger. We have the Woods' and Nootka all over our property.
Lol, I must be a .5%er as we have 2 dehydrators, though one is stuck on high temp... so maybe a .75%er?
LOL! I feel so privileged to know a half a percenter!
The rain has been unbelievable, I feel like I am at my grandma's farm on the west side. If we start getting slugs and alder trees sprouting everywhere I am going to have a fit!
I love rose hips! I gather those little beauties in early fall round here, best tea ever! I also want to make rose hip fruit leather this year, they are so yummy:)
Well, that's new on me. Rose hip fruit leather sounds killer.
All I can think recently about this rain is that I am extremely happy our soil is as porous as it is otherwise we would be living in a lake. 15.5" of rain since Jan 1 for us.
I'll let you know how it turns out, the idea has intrigued me for awhile, tangy fruit leather, lol!
Ditto on the glad for porous soil thing, I'm so tired of having wet feet, urgh!!!
So much goodness out there to be preserved!
Curated for #naturalmedicine (by @minismallholding) - join our community here.
The Lotus Garden is a newsletter supporting content relevant to Homesteaders & supported by Natural Medicine. Earn LOTUS & HIVE for your #homesteading content!
About II Discord II Community
Thank you!!!!
I've been dehydrating my rugosa petals for a over a week now. My Damascus rose has started flowering and I dry those also. When the fairy roses on the 7 Sisters rose flower, I will do those too.
Ahh, Damascus roses, I can smell them from here, lol lol! What do you use all your petals for?
Mostly they go in the herbal mix for the hens in winter. One day I hope to make sachets of the Damascus rose petals...
It has never entered my head to dry some of those rose petals! I should give it a try. (My drying device looks about like yours, by the way.) Say, I looked at the monthly weather calendar for June, and there have only been 5 sunny days so far this month. No wonder we are growing webbed feet!