Rose Petal Jelly

Rose petal jelly. Doesn't sound like that big of a deal, does it? Maybe it isn't, depending on the rose you make it with.

But WOW, when you make it with a 7-sisters rose, you know you've got something!

First - the 7-sisters rose...

Named in 1817, supposedly when it was brought over from an unknown country - some say China, some say England, it was an instant hit.

There is also great controversy regarding what type of rose it is. It has no fewer than 12 latin names that it can be called. That's confusion. LOL

Regardless, it's the hardiest rose I've ever seen. It rarely gets black spot - it may this year with all of the rain we're getting so early, but maybe not. It almost never gets aphids. They try, but they never succeed in infesting it. It tolerates significant drought, shade and poor soil. It's not quite a climber, so most will call it a rambling rose.

The name comes from its ability to have at least 7 different colors on a single stem or spray. This year we even have some white blooms - rare for her. As you can see, the shades might be subtle, but the blooms also might be striped as you can see from the bloom in the lower right side of the photo. They are anywhere from 1-3 inches across, double petals and wonderfully scented!

For this project, I decided to use old blooms where the petals were ready to fall from the bloom. I just can't sacrifice such beauty and incredible scent just to try something. And from the results, I don't need to! WOW!
As you can see from the color of the rose water, something chemical occurs to change the color of the petal to the rose water. Most likely acid in the pectin and lemon juice. The smell when making the rose water is just divine. Actually, the smell throughout the process is just divine. Just incredible.



The recipe I made was a 1:1 sugar to rose water ratio. Make it as you would any jelly, and you get about 4 half-pint jars. The pictures are from my first batch. Is this just the most gorgeous jelly you've ever seen? You can practically read through it! If it weren't for the distortion from the jar glass, you probably could!

One thing I've yet to master with this rose is propogating it. This year, just for grins, I stuck some of the prunings in the ground. Just shoved them in. I did nothing else to them. Whenever I have, it hasn't worked, so I figured I'd do it this way. It worked! At least thus far. They all have some roots, so I transferred them to a more ideal location with far better soil and that is more like the mother plant's location. So, we'll see.

Can you believe this jelly sells for over $1/oz, plus S+H? I'm not selling mine for nearly that much. It's not as little as my rhubarb, but it's not a buck an ounce either!

Tasting it is like truly capturing the smell of a rose. It lingers on your tongue the way you wish smelling one would. Just incredible. It's perfect for those days in december when you are holding to the hope that June truly will return again. Wow.

If you'd like to try some, please contact me. I'll be making at least 2 more batches. The smallest jar is 4 oz at 2.75. The 8 oz is 6. I'll figure out shipping individually. And if you live nearby, it just might be free!
BloomsBaker @ gmail.com
I broke the link, so take the spaces out to make it work right for you.

BPA From Endocrine Society

WASHINGTON (June 10) - Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.

They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects.

Studies presented at the group's annual meeting show BPA can affect the hearts of women, can permanently damage the DNA of mice, and appear to be pouring into the human body from a variety of unknown sources.

BPA, used to stiffen plastic bottles, line cans and make smooth paper receipts, belongs to a broad class of compounds called endocrine disruptors.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is examining their safety but there has not been much evidence to show that they are any threat to human health.

"We present evidence that endocrine disruptors do have effects on male and female development, prostate cancer, thyroid disease, cardiovascular disease," Dr. Robert Carey of the University of Virginia, who is president of the Endocrine Society, told a news conference.

The society issued a lengthy scientific statement about the chemicals in general that admits the evidence is not yet overwhelming, but is worrying.

Dr. Hugh Taylor of Yale University in Connecticut found evidence in mice that the compounds could affect unborn pups.

"We exposed some mice to bisphenol A and then we looked at their offspring," Taylor told the news conference.

We found that even when a they had a brief exposure during pregnancy ... mice exposed to these chemicals as a fetus carried these changes throughout their lives."

The BPA did not directly change DNA through mutations, but rather through a process called epigenetics -- when chemicals attach to the DNA and change its function.

Widespread Exposure

Taylor noted studies have shown that most people have some BPA in their blood, although the effects of these levels are not clear.

Dr. Frederick Vom Saal of the University of Missouri, who has long studied endocrine disruptors, said tests on monkeys showed the body quickly clears BPA -- which may at first sound reassuring.
But he said when tests show most people have high levels, this suggests they are being repeatedly exposed to BPA.

"We are really concerned that there is a very large amount of bisphenol A that must be coming from other sources," Vom Saal said.

Dr. Scott Belcher of the University of Cincinnati in Ohio and colleagues will tell the meeting they found BPA could affect the heart cells of female mice, sending them into an uneven beating pattern called an arrhythmia.

"These effects are specific on the female heart. The male heart does not respond in this way and we understand why," Belcher said. He said BPA interacts with estrogen and said the findings may help explain why young women are more likely to die when they have a heart attack than men of the same age.

U.S. government toxicologists at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences expressed concern last year that BPA may hurt development of the prostate and brain.

A 2008 study by British researchers linked high levels of BPA to heart disease, diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities.

Jam Making

I've been making jam. A lot of jam. For the farmer's market, which gives me a little cash flow, which is always nice. I can make jam - versus other far more perishable goods - when I have a little extra energy, rather than forcing the issue the day before the market. Like today!

I went and picked rhubarb at my aunt and uncles since my 2 clumps need a little time to recover. I've got enough for at least 8 batches, and probably more than that, if I really pushed the issue.

Since I hate regular store-bought jam, and since we've always made our own anyway, it seemed a natural thing for me to make to sell at the market. Sales are just starting to pick up, so I'm getting more hopeful about continuing to make it.

I always get angry when the jam doesn't set. Well, I have done a ton of research on the topic and have come to many conclusions...

Sugar is cheap. Fruit is expensive. Make jam with as much sugar as possible.

Pectin is a sugar, and needs regular sugar to help it set - it's a loose crystaline structure.

Pectin needs different cooking times with different fruits - whether you're using what's in the fruit only or supplementing with store-bought.

The sugar helps decrease cooking time as well as unify cooking times.

Rhubarb just coming up this spring.

By reading Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking, I was able to see that longer cooking times might be needed - and won't ruin the setting. It gave the perfect visual que that the jam is ready - when the drops on the spoon suddenly congeal into one before they drop off the spoon. Ha! And that you can cook it too hotly. So if you have a longer cooking time, turn the heat down.

This also works with lower sugar amounts.

And while there are different types of pectin that will work better with high or low sugar or no sugar batches, you can putz around with it and make it work with just about any pectin. Which is why I bought a huge bag (10#) through Pacific Pectin. That'll be enough for roughly 80 batches of jam. LOL - I think I'll have enough. But still - at .80 v. 2.30 per batch, that's a huge price difference that I'd rather have in my pocket than sure jell's.

Last year's blueberries.

So right now, it's rhubarb jam and blueberry rhubarb jam. Very soon, the blubarb will be replaced with strawberry rhubarb, and strawberry. And very very soon, I'll be able to make a batch or two of rose petal jelly. The 7 sister's is getting ready to bloom, and so will use that. It's an old heritage rose that has gorgeous scent and color - perfect for jelly!

If you have a problem with your jam - cook it longer and at a lower temperature. It'll come together for you!

Corn Equals Fast Food

That the $100-billion fast food industry rests on a foundation of corn has been known more through inference and observation than hard scientific fact — until now.

Chemical analysis from restaurants across the United States shows that nearly every cow or chicken used in fast food is raised on a diet of corn, prompting fresh criticism of the government’s role in subsidizing poor eating habits.

"People had talked about what they observed or found out about, as individual journalists or individual consumers," said University of Hawaii geobiologist and study co-author A. Hope Jahren. But anecdotes do not add up to scientific proof, she said. "We got national data on how this food is being produced. It’s very objective."

Corn is central to agriculture in the United States, where it is grown in greater volumes and receives more government subsidies than any other crop. Between 1995 and 2006 corn growers received $56 billion in federal subsidies, and the annual figure may soon hit $10 billion.

But in recent years, environmentalists have branded corn as an icon of unsustainable agriculture. It requires large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which require large amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture.

Most of the resulting corn is fed to livestock who didn’t evolve to subsist entirely on corn. In cattle, eating corn increases flatulence emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas — and creates an intestinal environment rich in e. coli, a common cause of food poisoning. That necessitates mixing cow feed with antibiotics, in turn producing antibiotic-resistant disease strains.

Many of those livestock end up in high-calorie, low-nutrition franchised fast foods, which have been repeatedly linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Fast food’s biggest selling point is its low price — and that, say industry critics, is largely possible because of corn’s ubiquitous cheapness.

"We’re seeing that corn is the number-one reason that fast food is so cheap and available," said Meredith Niles, a food policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety who was not involved in the study. "U.S. programs are subsidizing obesity in this country."


Jahren’s team analyzed hamburgers, chicken sandwiches and french fries from multiple McDonald’s, Burger King and Wendy’s restaurants in six U.S. cities.
In both types of meat at every location, a telltale configuration of nitrogen and carbon traces showed that the animals had eaten corn-heavy diets; in the case of beef, 150 out of 162 samples came from animals that ate nothing but corn. Fries were prepared in corn-based oil.

The results weren’t surprising, said New York University food studies expert Marion Nestle, but underscored the fact that "most people aren’t aware of the extent to which corn ingredients permeate the food supply."

Nutrition aside, Jahren urged consumers to consider the implications of what they eat. "When you give a nickel to fast food, invariably it goes right back to the corn industry," she said.

For Niles, the results are a political challenge.

"We have a new President taking his place in the White House. It’s a great opportunity to rearrange agricultural policy and to think about obesity," she said. "This study shows that it comes down in a lot of ways to one product."

Monsanto Bullying Obama

From the Grist
I’m no expert on the mafia, but I have seen the first two Godfather movies and Goodfellas, oh, a few times. One thing I’ve learned: “protection” is a major mob racket. It works like this: a thug drops by your shop monthly and makes small talk. You hand him some cash, and your shop runs smoothly. You refuse to pay, and ... things go wrong.
I’ve been thinking about protection rackets ever since an agrichemical industry group chided Michelle Obama for not using “crop protection” products on her White House garden. The group famously wrote a letter (intercepted by Jill of La Vida Locavore) urging the First Lady to do so back in March.
I just found out that Croplife.org, the industry’s Web site, also launched a “letter writing campaign” among members. “The garden is a great idea and the photo op of the First Lady and local elementary schoolchildren digging up the ground was precious,” the campaign informs Croplife readers. But ... “did you realize that it will be an organic garden?”
An organic garden—one that fails to utilize the agrichem industry’s products? That simply won’t do:
What message does that send the general public about the agriculture industry that the majority of you are so proud to serve? What message does that send to the non-farming public about an important and integral part of growing safe and abundant crops to feed and clothe the world—crop protection products?
So Croplife urges members to drop a line to Ms. Obama:
I hope that you will take a moment to consider how important that message is to your livelihood, your passion for agriculture, and your growers’ future—and send your own letter, sharing the benefits of modern, conventional agriculture. Help allay any fears by providing a specific example of how what you do on a daily basis, including custom application and/or the sale of crop protection products and fertilizers, has saved a crop and/or improved yields to benefit more Americans.
So far, the First Lady seems to be holding out on using “crop protection.” Does that mean that some really scary insects are going to come eat her spinach?

FYI Only - I'm unable to verify this letter came from anywhere except La Vida Locavore - MACA doesn't have it on their site, which I would think they would, and none of their affiliate sites do as well. While The Grist has been highly accurate, I'm not certain about this one. But - will keep searching to verify...

The entire letter - as found on La Vida Locavore:

March 26, 2009

Mrs. Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mrs. Obama,

We are writing regarding the garden recently added to the White House grounds to ensure a fresh supply of fruits and vegetables to your family, guests, and staff. Congratulations on recognizing the importance of agriculture in America! The U.S. has the safest and most abundant food supply in the world thanks to the 3 million people who farm or ranch in the United States.

The CropLife Ambassador Network, a program of the Mid America CropLife Association, consists of over 160 ambassadors who work and many of whom grew up in agriculture. Their mission is to provide scientifically based, accurate information to the public regarding the safety and value of American agricultural food production. Many people, especially children, don't realize the extent to which their daily lives depend on America's agricultural industry. For instance, children are unaware the jeans they put on in the morning, the three meals eaten daily, the baseball with which they play, and even the biofuels that power the school bus are available because of America's farmers and ranchers.

Agriculture is the largest industry in America generating 20 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product. Individuals, family partnerships or family corporations operate almost 99 percent of U.S. farms. Over 22 million people are employed in farm-related jobs, including production agriculture, farm inputs, processing, and marketing and sales. Through research and changes in production practices, today's food producers are providing Americans with the widest variety of foods ever.

Starting in the early 1900s, technology advances have allowed farmers to continually produce more food on less land while using less human labor. Over time, Americans were able to leave the time-consuming demands of farming to pursue new interests and develop new abilities. Today, an average farmer produces enough food to feed 144 Americans who are living longer lives than many of their ancestors. Technology in agriculture has allowed for the development of much of what we know and use in our lives today. If Americans were still required to farm to support their family's basic food and fiber needs, would the U.S. have been leaders in the advancement of science, communication, education, medicine, transportation, and the arts?

We live in a very different world than that of our grandparents. Americans are juggling jobs with the needs of children and aging parents. The time needed to tend a garden is not there for the majority of our citizens, certainly not a garden of sufficient productivity to supply much of a family's year-round food needs.

Much of the food considered not wholesome or tasty is the result of how it is stored or prepared rather than how it is grown. Fresh foods grown conventionally are wholesome and flavorful yet more economical. Local and conventional farming is not mutually exclusive. However, a Midwest mother whose child loves strawberries, a good source of vitamin C, appreciates the ability to offer California strawberries in March a few months before the official Mid-west season.

Farmers and ranchers are the first environmentalists, maintaining and improving the soil and natural resources to pass onto future generations. Technology allows for farmers to meet the increasing demand for food and fiber in a sustainable manner.
Farmers use reduced tillage practices on more than 72 million acres to prevent erosion.
Farmers maintain over 1.3 million acres of grass waterways, allowing water to flow naturally from crops without eroding soil.
Contour farming keeps soil from washing away. About 26 million acres in the U.S. are managed this way.
Agricultural land provides habitat for 75 percent of the nation's wildlife.
Precision farming boosts crop yields and reduces waste by using satellite maps and computers to match seed, fertilizer, and crop protection applications to local soil conditions.
Sophisticated Global Positioning Systems can be specifically designed for spraying pesticides. A weed detector equipped with infrared light identifies specific plants by the different rates of light they reflect and then sends a signal to a pump to spray a preset amount of herbicide onto the weed.
Biogenetics allows a particular trait to be implanted directly into the seed to protect the seed against certain pests.
Farmers are utilizing four-wheel drive tractors with up to 300 horsepower requiring fewer passes across fields-saving energy and time.
Huge combines are speeding the time it takes to harvest crops.
With modern methods, 1 acre of land in the U.S. can produce 42,000 pounds (lbs.) of strawberries, 110,000 heads of lettuce, 25,400 lbs. of potatoes, 8,900 lbs. of sweet corn, or 640 lbs. of cotton lint.
As you go about planning and planting the White House garden, we respectfully encourage you to recognize the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S. in feeding the ever-increasing population, contributing to the U.S. economy, and providing a safe and economical food supply. America's farmers understand crop protection technologies are supported by sound scientific research and innovation.

The CropLife Ambassador Network offers educational programs for elementary school educators at http://ambassador.maca.org covering the science behind crop protection products and their contribution to sustainable agriculture. You may find our programs America's Abundance, Farmers Stewards of the Land, and War of the Weeds of particular interest. We thank you for recognizing the importance and value of America's current agricultural technologies in feeding our country and contributing to the U.S economy.

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Sincerely,
Bonnie McCarvel, Executive Director
Janet Braun, Program Coordinator
Mid America CropLife Association
11327 Gravois Rd., #201
St. Louis, MO 63126

Jam Making

I make a lot of jam. I tend to know when it will set, when it won't, the different recipes you can fudge, the ones you can't. And rarely have problems with it not setting.

Of course, until I started making to sell.

I made 4 batches yesterday - 2 rhubarb and 2 rhubarb/blueberry mix (aka blubarb). I decided I'd make them all on the same day and really watch how I made them - being precise in my repetition to see if they'd all jell the same or not. The results I got were NOT expected.

There were jars in each *batch* that didn't set. What?! How can you have the exact same jars that were prepared at the exact same time in the same manner not set with the same batch of jam? It blows my mind. So, I have some jam, and some syrup. I'll probably try again with the syrup, just to see if I can get it to set, but WOW, who'd have guess THAT?

It's not me. It's not the pectin. It's not the weather. So what is it?

Composting Made Easy

Can you believe people have written entire books on making compost? I actually find that very hard to believe, but put enough fill in anything and it can look real.

So, you don't want to compost because - it's dirty, smelly, time consuming, space consuming? Did I miss anything?

Done right, it's none of the above. And there are several ways to make compost, so you can find a way that suits you completely.

Apartment-posting

If you're like my sister and live in an apartment in an area that doesn't recycle anything, your garbage bags start getting big and numerous. You could cut down on the amount of stuff you throw out a couple of ways.

Worms - I'm not big into worm farms. People tire of them, and rather than give them away or destroy them, they get released into 'the wild'. The only problem with this is they eat too much too quickly and are rapidly destroying our forest floors. But, you can make a small bin out of a rubbermade container and feed the little guys all of your vegetable materials and newspaper. Use what's left for your houseplants or give to a neighbor. Either way works.

5 gallon bucket - put an ad on Craig's List or find a local community garden to offer your vegetable material to them for composting. They'll take it with a glad heart! A couple times a week, or once a week - whichever works best for you, and you're finished with it!

Home Composting

If you're lucky enough to live where you can compost outside, GREAT! You're options are far more plentiful. You can do either listed above as well as a few other ways.

Hot Composting
This is where you make a little effort once every week or two. You mix grass clippings, weeds, leaves, veggie scraps from the kitchen all together and literally let it cook. Given the right moisture content, which is about that of a rung out sponge, it'll get up to 140 degrees with little effort. You turn it at least every two weeks to give it oxygen - just stir it up - and it'll get hot all over again. This can be ready in as little as a month, but I usually just keep adding to the pile and let it cook all summer. It depends on how quickly you need the compost.

Cold Composting
This is where you add all of the same stuff as in Hot Composting, but don't bother turning it. It'll take longer for this to be ready, a full year, but is far easier to maintain. Build it and forget it. Take the top of the pile to start the new pile the next spring and use all of the bottom material in your flower beds, vegetable garden, container plants, etc.

Trench Composting
Yes, it's as easy as it sounds. Dig a trench - you decide the length - about 10"-12" deep. Fill the trench with your composting material, and cover it with the soil as you go. You can also do this as holes, if you don't have room for a trench. You do this right in your flower beds - plant right on top of the trench! - your vegetable gardens (put the trench or holes in the paths), or right in your lawn (the holes)

Blender Composting
If you have very little room in your yard for a pile, combine the Trench method with this method and the space saved will be phenomenal. Put your vegetable scraps in the blender, add just enough water to cover, and blend it until it's a slurry mush. Pour into the whole, cover and it's gone.

Tips

Hot compost does best when it's in 1 cubic yard piles. 3'x3'x3'. This is why I keep adding to the pile. As it breaks down, it gets smaller. So, I keep adding to it to maintain the proper size. By fall, you've been able to add all of your material from the summer and it will now become a cold compost pile, working more slowly, but just as well. Keep adding to it all winter and use the top few inches to start your pile in the spring.

Cold compost has no size limits. It can be as big or small as you wish. But, it does take a full year for it to fully break down everything, including seeds. So you must be patient with it.

Do NOT add anything with protein in it - milk, cheese, or meat. This will attract wildlife you'd rather not have and will smell horribly.

The smaller the pieces of material to be composted, the faster it will compost. If you place an entire head of lettuce in a compost pile, you'll still be able to recognize it as that head of lettuce up to a month later. But if you chop it or put it in the blender, you won't recognize it within a week. That is ideal!

Compost should look like dirt, but not feel like dirt. It'll be a rich brown with nothing that looks like grass, leaves, vegetable scraps and whatever else you put in. It'll be slightly damp, but won't cake or clump, and won't have that musty smell dirt so often has. It'll smell slightly sweet, but not like yeast.

Add it to anything you want to have grow well. Considering it's what nature has used from the beginning of time, it can't be bad!

Best of all - it's FREE. And doesn't go in the landfill! It's hard to beat that combination.

Links to More Information
From the EPA
From Cornell
From Farm Aid
Composting 101