Rose Harvest & Conserve of Roses

I was at a potluck dinner with my family last evening and took a little tour around the amazing garden that my friend Joel tends. He wanted me to identify a few weeds, it was of course my pleasure as I love the weeds. One of them was a lemony sorrel that we nibbled. As we continued around the yard and gardens I found myself enamored by all the roses. One of them was an enormous climbing rose from a mountain house of my past that is still close to my heart. It had been transplanted a few years back and is absolutely magnificent.

As we wandered I was listening to my guide tell about the cippolina onions, the fava beans and all the fabulous plantings, but my mind was on the roses. After we rounded the house leaving most of the vast gardens behind, we came upon even more roses.

I asked if I could harvest some of them. “Of course” he said.

As I was walking into the house to get something to harvest them into, I found my oldest daughter and three of her friends chatting away on the porch swing. “Come with me” I said. I think they thought I was going to have them set the table or some other unwanted chore, but they did follow. I grabbed a paper grocery bag and took them to the largest rose bush, the climber.

Two of the girls are exchange students so I was a bit concerned about the language barrier, but with my first sentence I realized they could understand me perfectly. “Find the yummiest looking rose you can. One you would want to eat if it were candy or a piece of fruit.” They looked at each other and giggled.

Once they all knew what they were looking for (yumminess) I had them each harvest* 15 roses from the climbing rose, then one each of the big roses from the fancier varieties.

It was such an amazing and timeless image of these young girls, young women really, harvesting these flowers of love on this last day of May. The lyrical cadence of their voices moving together in harmony was like heaven. I thought for a moment of getting my camera, but let the thought go just as quickly. The moment would have been lost if any external attention was brought to it.

They stood together after finishing their task amongst the roses for some time. Whether it was in the teenage distraction or the scent of the roses making them linger, I don’t know, but for me (observing discreetly from a distance), it was a golden moment and perhaps one that will be remembered by them as well.

"Their lips were four red roses
on a stalk."
~ William Shakespeare

Today I awoke to the responsibility of preserving the rose petals.

I decided to try something new.

I found several old fashioned recipes for things like rose-petal soup, rose-petal scones, rose jelly and the like.

I wanted something that would be for use later in the year when the roses are not at their peak. I wanted to preserve the magic somehow.

Jelly seemed like an ok idea, except that I didn’t have any lemons and wanted to make something with what was in the house already.

I settled on taking inspiration from some medieval recipes.

This is my version of Rose Conserve:

Harvest unsprayed fragrant roses, remove the petals, let wilt overnight.

Into a glass jar pour a layer of organic cane sugar then a layer of rose petals.

Do this several times ending with sugar.

Simple. I know. The real beauty for me is the harvesting, the sorting and the smelling. I don't mind a complicated recipe now and again, but I didn't want to cook or cut or grind these. I wanted them to stay as they were.

I imagine a couple of things may happen with the sugared roses.

One is that the water in the roses will mingle with the sugar and melt it down creating interesting and fragrant syrup.

The other more hopeful outcome is that the roses will preserve between the layers of sugar and the moisture will all wick to the top and I can pour this off and use it in another recipe. (I won’t know what kind of recipe until I taste the liquid.)

The other possibility is that it will come to naught, but in any case my house smells like heaven.

For now enjoy the pictures and I’ll keep you updated with the progress.

Touch your cheek to the cheek of sugar.
Get the taste of it. Give perfume to it.
Try to alleviate the pain of separation
With the help of sugar.
Once you become the conserve of roses,
You are food for the Soul,
Light for the eyes...
When I say "conserve of roses,"
I mean the Grace of God and our existence.

Rumi

*With the blossom of the flower just kissing your palm, wrap your fingers towards the base of the flower and with your thumb and fingers pinch off the flower cleanly at its base, leaving the blossom in your palm. Then toss it gently in the bag.

Happy May Day - May Wine

I have often been called the Queen of Cups and yet I'm more recently thinking of myself as the Queen of Spring Tonics.
Spring tonics make my heart sing.
I like them as simple as can be.

May Wine
-how to make-
On or near May Day (May 1) harvest tops (all that is above ground) of Sweet Woodruff Gallium odorata.
Buy a bottle of white wine.
Open the wine, sort the less than lovely parts of the Sweet Woodruff from the lovely and put the lovely parts into the wine.
Let sit for 30 minutes or so, then pour little sips and toast to May, the May Queen and springtime. Make another toast for yourself and for what you wish for in the coming spring season of new growth and wonder.Sweet Woodruff is a modest May Queen. Perhaps a May Princess.
Realted closely to Cleavers Gallium aparine.

The remainder of the May Wine can be stored in the refrigerator and sipped as your heart desires. The tiny bit you have sipped can be replaced by more white wine. It can be topped off as often as you like, depending on how much herb you have in the bottle. It's a bit like making tea in that the first steeping is fragrant and delicate and as the tea steeps longer it becomes full and imparts the deeper notes of a tea, sometimes bringing out the bitter notes. If you add more water to the same tea, it can be lovely still, but different.
This May Wine is like that.
The first day, right after I made it, the taste was delicate and flowery. Now, 3 days later the taste is richer, more full and has a distinct vanilla aroma.
I will sip it strong like it is until the weeks end and then top it with more wine and put it in the fridge. Of course I will offer some up to the May Queen.
Do what you like and trust your instincts.

There are a bit more complicated recipes for May Wine, but I like simplicity.
Try multiple recipes if you like, and let me know what you think.

This is a favorite spring tonic for making the heart joyful.
What could be better.
Enjoy!

Spring Flower Tonic

I love Oregon Grape.
I love harvesting the roots and scraping the bark down to a smooth magical twig.
I love finding a patch of bushes on a hike in the woods.
I love to eat the flowers this time of year and I love the berries in the summer and the tiny new leaves in the springtime.
But for today we are focusing on the flowers.
The taste of the flowers is strongly bitter and yet sweet somehow with a bit of a floral note.
What I didn't know until today is that they smell like heaven.
I've never cut the flowers except to pinch a few to eat on the trail, but when I brought them into my house and they came to room temperature, I couldn't believe the smell. Pure heaven. The smell is a bit like tiny magical daffodil, which is what the flowers look like up close.

As spring comes I change. Yes, I know we all change everyday but springtime completely undoes me.
I need spring tonics like some folks need meds.
I look for my spring tonic to do a couple of things.
First off the tonic should shed any winteriness in you. body/mind/spirit.
A tonic should bring vigor.
A spring tonic for me is a way to balance the transition between the winter me and the burgeoning summer me.
When I visioned for the perfect plant for me this season I kept seeing in my mind's eye, Oregon Grape's vivid yellow flowers.
Partly I wonder if it isn't Elizabeth from the English Dept. and all her fabulous yellows passing by me each day that is part of the vision, who knows.

I keep thinking about the cold energy of oregon grape and then I become concerned that it's not going to be stimulating enough to be a good tonic and then I am reminded of it's power to shift and change and yes, cool, the liver. I know that for me it's ok because I run hot, eat spicy foods, tend to get flushed cheeks, etc. but if you're a cold type with poor circulation this may not be the tonic for you. However, if you want make this work for you, just put a couple of slices of fresh ginger root or a cinnamon stick into the jar while making the tonic to warm it and you up.

Here are some pictures of one of the patches I harvested from.
From this big patch I took only 3 bunches of flowers.
It's hard to explain without being in person with you and the plants about the finer points of ethical wildcrafting. I've been thinking of the analogy of a jewelry box that someone has offered for you to take something from.
How do you choose what to take and what to leave?
Partly that depends on what is available. If in this case there are 40 jewels (blooms) I would take and did take one pristine beautiful flower and 2 other very nice but modest and out of the way blooms.
I went to another patch and did the same.
The most important thing to remember when offered something in the plant world just like anywhere else is to use your manners, then you'll be just fine.

The flowers have many of the same properties as the root and berries, but flowers are what I want and need right now.
Something light and fluffy and pretty and bright.
Oregon Grape is a superior liver tonic, is anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory. It is also a great blood purifier and a digestive tonic.
Always remember that anything that is good for your liver is good for your skin.


I made this spring tonic exactly like last years spring tonic. (follow the link to the recipe) It really is so simple.
The only difference between the recipes is that the cleavers were snipped with scissors and the oregon grape needs a little garbling.
Garbling is something we herbalists do, and it's a word that really means sorting this from that.
In fairy tales they're always garbling. Poppy seeds from dirt, moldy this from fresh that, the good apples from the rotten.
The word garbling I find annoying, but the process itself is incredibly calming and satisfying.
So here is a bit of the sorting. The flowers on the right will go into the jar, the green parts on the left go into the compost or to the chickens.

We always do garbling at Herb Camp with the kids.
It's a good life lesson.
I think if we could sort this from that on a daily basis with our papers, our burdens, our visions, our desires, we would move along our path of destiny at a much smoother clip.
xo