jaunthie | Second batch of jam is in the jars

The weather here has continued unusually cool, which is playing havoc with the normal progression of my roses. Nonetheless, a walk around the garden after work showed that it was definitely time to get the second batch made. One advantage of the cooler weather is that the roses retain their fragrance later in the day; less of the essential oils heat up and boil away. I prefer to harvest roses in the mid-morning on a sunny day, but this worked just fine, too. I just wish I had more of the Mme. Issacs open. As it was, this second batch was nearly all Red New Dawn (which I really have to wonder if it was a mismarked rose, as it is INSANELY fragrant, extremely dark red, and not much of a repeat bloomer most years, which does not match the description of Red New Dawn in most catalogues, but whatever - it is FABULOUS and a key part of my jam, so yay), with some Lavender Lassies and Mme. Issacs. No Autumn Sunsets this time - none of the reachable blooms were in the proper stage - or Yolandes, either. (I just planted Yolande this year, so it's gratifying that she has any blooms at all. I have high hopes for lots of Yolandes next year, though.) And none of the other roses, either, although I was almost tempted to throw in a few Darlows to make up for the lack of citrusy Autumn Sunsets. They're really too tiny to be worth it, though, unless there's lots of them available, and she's just starting to break out.

So anyway. Second batch is a different mix of roses than the first, but came together really well. This batch made more than the first, so there was just about a tiny half-jar's worth of jam left over after prepping the big jars for canning. (One plus side to this cold weather: hot water bath process for canning the jam is MUCH more pleasant than it was in last year's heat wave.)

fisherbear and I drizzled a little of that leftover jam over a tiny bit of vanilla ice cream, and oh, my! I can't speak for the quality of this year's first batch yet, but the second batch is definitely primo stuff. Yum!

Fisherbear also took some pictures of the process, so maybe there will be a photo essay later about making rose-petal jam. Or not.