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Gardening & Foraging for Life's avatar

That's awesome, I never heard of them being used as a tomato substitute. There are some rugosa rose cultivars that were developed for eating. They do have seeds, but way less on the hairs, and they are even bigger than yours! When fully ripe, and on the soft side, you can and I have eaten them out of hand. So yummy! I never ran into any little buggies, and I am glad I never thought of that. I have also used plums as tomato substitutes in salsas and sauces. And I have used tomatoes to make a sweet sauce, red hot apple cinnamon sauce. The red came from the tomatoes, I just strained out the seeds and skins, the hot came from cinnamon and hot peppers (skins and seeds of the later strained out as well). After the tomatoes and peppers were sauced, strained and blended, seasoned and sweetened to taste, chopped apple was added and then the sauce was jarred and canned. It went great in holiday and Valentine's Day gift baskets and everyone was amazed. :)

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Lesley's avatar

That’s amazing. I would never have thought of doing that! We planted Rosa rugosa into our shelter belt hedge last year and it’s got a few hips on it already, but in furniture years I can see it’s going to provide a sizeable crop. Thankyou for the inspiration!

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Francesca's avatar

What a nice substitute, I’ve never heard of them before but a fascinating story! I always thought I didn’t like tomatoes until I went to Greece a few years ago and I always say that was the first time I ate a tomato. The following year I met my partner who has a poly tunnel in the garden where tomatoes are one of the crops so now I eat a lot of tomatoes (also tinned and store bought when needed). We’re moving to a new house at the end of this week and we’re plotting the garden and a greenhouse

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Cat's avatar

There's such a difference between a proper ripe tomato and a mid-winter supermarket one, isn't there?! I hope your move goes well - a new garden is always exciting!

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Suzanne Oommen's avatar

That moth photo is wonderful!

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Cat's avatar

Thank you!

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gardening_kristi's avatar

It's so nice to use something you have in abundance. I'm glad you found a good way to use your rosehips. I, like you, pick my self sufficient crops carefully. Tomatoes aren't one of mine, either, and don't want them to be. I squirrel away the odd pint or quart of sauce, but I'm fine with buying canned tomatoes to make sauce. I'd rather grow a variety of good things to eat fresh and preserve some extras of everything. The things I prefer to be self sufficient in are generally not available in good quality or expensive.

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