Probably, everyone has heard about how useful rosehip berries are. They are very long and widely used in traditional and traditional medicine. Decoctions and infusions of rose hips are an effective tool for the treatment of many ailments. In addition, in the cold season, they allow you to make up for the deficiency of vitamins in the body. Ascorbic acid alone in rosehip berries contains almost 50 times more than in lemons, and 10 times than in blackcurrant, not to mention other useful compounds. Of course, you can buy ready-to-eat dry fruits, but there can be no confidence in the ecological purity of the purchased raw materials. Therefore, it is better to harvest them yourself. However, for this you need to know when the rose hips are harvested.
Folk calendarAccording to popular beliefs, dogrose should be harvested from October 1, that is, on the day of Arina Rosehip. However, these instructions cannot be blindly followed. Because this representative of the flora grows in different climatic zones and conditions, which means that its ripening time in different regions may differ. Therefore, the time when the rose hips are harvested in a specific geographical area must be determined individually. The onset of the moment of collection depends on what effect the person wants to receive.
Rosehip - collection time
For what purpose a person collects fruits plays a very important role. The longer the berries remain on the branches, the less ascorbic acid is stored in them, but the percentage of sugars increases. These changes in the composition of the fruits are easily determined visually. The darker the color of the berries, the more sugar and less vitamin C. When the rose hips are harvested, it depends on what the harvester prefers.
It should be understood that subzero temperatures accelerate changes in the composition of berries: they reduce the level of vitamin C and increase the percentage of sugars. Therefore, if a person needs more sweet fruits, you should wait for a cold snap. However, the most healthy berries must be picked as they ripen. In the northern geographical areas, they can begin to be harvested already in late summer, when the fruits turn orange or red. When the rose hips are harvested in more southern latitudes, it depends on the weather and the time of onset of cold weather.
To determine the time of harvesting berries with the highest content of ascorbic acid, you need to pay attention to how fruit sepals are located. The collection of rose hips should begin when they are puffing. Because it is a sign of the maximum content of vitamins. If the sepals are adjacent to the berries, then this means that they are not ripe enough.
For harvesting, hard and large fruits of bright color are most suitable. The content of nutrients in them is much higher than in soft berries. To preserve more vitamin C in the fruits, you need to pluck them from the branches along with the receptacle and the stalk. Freshly picked berries retain their beneficial properties for no more than three days. Therefore, you need to start drying them as soon as possible, which is carried out at a temperature of 60-80 C.