Anybody Grow Roselle?

[imp]

Pretty pictures everyone. Roselle might make a good jelly or jam, it seems. Maybe ith some really sweet peaches or mangoes added in.

[GoDawgs]

We have a frost advisory for tomorrow morning so just to be on the safe side I cut all the calyxes off the three Roselles planted out in the yard. The total was 204, 81 of them off one plant!






These plants were tough this summer. They got a little 10-10-10 mixed into the planting holes before setting out the transplants back in May. They also got maybe one snack of Miracle Grow a month later but that's all the feeding they've gotten to date.

They were watered by me maybe once or twice while they were still on the young side but then thrived all summer through very high temps and very little rain. I purposely withheld supplemental water just to see how they'd do on their own and they never showed any wilt. I'm impressed!

Oh, and the deer thought they tasted just so-so as they nibbled a bit but didn't return to devour the plants like they do when they find something they really like!

[GoDawgs]

I've harvested what is probably the last of the Roselle for the season although a few fat red calyxes will probably appear before it's all over. We've had just a few light frosts which didn't bother the plants at all. Saturday morning it will dip to 32 so I'll see just how much cold they can take unprotected.

There were a little over 200 calyxes from three of the four plants. The fourth plant had already been stripped of goodies. I pulled the red sepals from the seed pod and dehydrated them, getting two full quart jars of dried sepals. That's a ton of vitamin C sitting on the shelf now. Here's a shot of the dried sepals and the resulting tea I made from some of them.



I haven't tried making roselle jelly using the green seed pods for their natural pectin. Maybe next year.

[greenthumbomaha]

Bravo, job well done. That is a lot of calyxes for your growing conditions. Wake me up from the winter blahs to plant the rest of my seed when it is time. I obviously didn't give them enough of something in the beginning because they never grew into big transplants like yours.


- Lisa

[GoDawgs]

Thanks, it was a fun experiment that will be repeated next year! Do you start your plants under lights? I also like to use those deep cell packs for seed germination, 3" I think. The extra depth makes for good root formation and then I don't have to shift up to a larger pot for a while.

They got transplanted out May 11, a few days after the sweet potatoes went out. Both of those need settled weather.

Oh boy, the cold tolerance or lack thereof for the roselles will be tested next week. We've got a cold front coming through in the wee hours of Friday morning. It'll get up to 55 but then there are some lows in the high 20's coming next Tuesday. Bye bye, beans and roselle! I'm not going to cover them either. It's time.

I grew some from Renee, called Zinger, but I obviously have the wrong climate for it, so I'll just buy the dried calyces for tea.

It lowers blood pressure and is recommended for that here. There are many more medicinal uses listed in the article mentioned in an earlier post,
https://hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/roselle.html

[imp]

Dawg, you sure are tempting me to put a couple of the roselle plants out with the okra next year! I like Red Zinger tea at times and the roselle would be a good source for Vitamin C.

[imp]

Thank you for the seeds, will be trying them out this next growing season!