Where I come from (and fortunately also where I'm living now), you can find rosehips, or dogrose, growing everywhere.
When I was a kid, their thorny branches annoyed us sometimes, because we couldn't get through the thick hedges, when we were out in the fields exploring nature.
The hairy seeds were used sometimes for pranking other kids, because they are very itchy, when you get them on your skin ^^
It's funny that until recently I've never thought about eating them. Although I loved rosehip tea all my life, it never occured to me, that I could make it myself.
But living offgrid (we are house-sitting an offgrid homestead in Bulgaria right now) makes me do a lot of things that I've never done before.
And I'm having a lot of fun learning and experimenting :-)
Today I've cut the rosehips, that I had gathered a while ago.
I had picked some, when it was still quite warm outside, and also picked some more quite recently, after we have had frost for a few days.
The rosehips get sweeter the colder it gets, so it's one of the few tasty things, one can still gather in winter.
I'm sure, nature provides us with everything we need.
So she invented the rosehip to give us a rich source of vitamin C during the cold season.
It is also great for treating a sore throat or other symptoms of a cold.
There are different ways of preserving them, like making jam or jelly, putting them in alcohol, or freeze them. Of course you can also eat them raw, if you don't mind the many tiny itchy seeds inside them ^^
But I've decided to dry the ones, I've gathered, to use them for making tea.
I've let mine as whole fruits at first, but now, after most of them were drying for about three weeks, I became a bit impatient ^^
So I've cut them all in half today, to speed up the process a bit.
It's actually recommended for bigger varieties of rosehip to cut them, before you dry them, so that they won't go mouldy inside. But I didn't know that a few weeks ago ^^
And it seems, the fruits didn't know either, because they all looked great, so everything's fine :-)
Now I'm gonna let them dry out a bit longer, so I can safely store them in a glass. And maybe the next days I'm gonna go out to gather some more, there are still plenty of shrubs around, full of tiny tasty red fruits!
I'm already looking forward to drinking my first cup of tea made with self-gathered rosehips :-)
all pictures by me