Hawthorn berries are valued for excellent taste and are well known for their healing properties.
But in order for them to retain their taste and benefit the body, you need to know how to properly collect and preserve hawthorn for the winter.
Rules for collecting and preparing berries for storage
The harvest of this unique plant begins at the end of September, when the fruits begin to ripen, and ends with the first frost. The weather for harvesting berries should be sunny and dry. They are torn down during the day, when the dew leaves, and are immediately sorted out, discarding rotten or spoiled birds. You need to tear not individual berries, but completely the shields.
Important! Fruits are suitable for harvesting only those plants that are far from roads and railways, industrial plants and landfills.Immediately after harvesting, the berries are picked, discarded, all unripe and defective, then the stalks are removed. And the last stage - carefully wash the selected berries and let them dry. Now your harvest is ready for further processing.
Frost
In a frozen form, this healing berry can be stored for up to 1 year, while still maintaining the lion's share of beneficial substances for the body. Pre-prepared fruit laid in the freezer in two ways:
- A tray is placed on the bottom or lined with food film, the hawthorn is poured in one layer, the film can be put on top and another layer can be poured out. After freezing it is laid out in bags and stored in the freezer.
- You can immediately arrange the fruits in special zippered bags for freezing, put them in the camera and set the “quick freeze” mode.
How to dry the fruits of a plant
For drying the berries of this wonderful plant are suitable in several ways:
- in a special dryer at a temperature not exceeding 60 ° C, since at a higher temperature valuable substances are destroyed;
- in an electric or gas oven with the door ajar;
- in the sun, placing the fruits in one layer on the linen fabric and covering them with gauze from flies, periodically turning and selecting the spoiled ones;
- on batteries in the apartment - berries are hung in fabric bags or poured into cardboard boxes and placed on top.
Properly dried fruits should smell good, be dark maroon, hard and shriveled. 
You can store them no more than two years in linen bags, paper bags, jars with a tight lid. The storage areas should be dry and dark, and also need good ventilation.
Learn in detail how to properly dry the plum and rosehip to maintain beneficial properties.
Harvesting hawthorn, ground with sugar
Another simple recipe for hawthorn harvesting for the winter is to grind it with sugar. They do it this way: the bones are removed, the flesh is kept in boiling water or in a double boiler for 2-3 minutes, then rubbed through a sieve or twisted in a meat grinder. Sugar is added to the resulting puree at the rate of 2.5 cups per 1 kg of berries, this mixture is heated to 80 ° C to melt the sugar, and laid out in sterile jars. Filled jars are pasteurized for 20-30 minutes in boiling water and rolled up. 
Preserves, jams, mashed potatoes
What hawthorn we love for our hostesses is the availability, yield and variety of recipes for making it.
- Jam
Hot jam can be prepared as follows: a kilogram of prepared flesh without stones falls asleep 600 grams of sugar and wait for 2-3 hours until the mass starts up juice. Cooked jam for three days - in the first two days they boil in the evening for 5 minutes and set aside until the morning, on the third day they are allowed to boil for 2 minutes and rolled into sterile jars.- Jam
Did you know? Our ancestors believed that glod (as the people call hawthorn) is able to protect against evil forces, sending diseases to humans.Peeled berries are placed in a saucepan, water is poured and boiled over low heat until the berries are soft. Then the water is poured into a separate container, and the fruit fray through a sieve. In the resulting puree add sugar and previously drained water, cook until thick, stirring. At the end pour lemon juice. Jars of jam are sterilized for 5 minutes and rolled up.
- Mashed potatoes
Then add sugar at the rate of 300 g per 2 kg of berries and immediately cork. 
Paste
Another useful delicacy, which is obtained from the berries of the glode and can replace sweets, is marshmallow. Peeled and softened in boiling water to twist the fruit in a meat grinder, add a little honey, melt it beforehand in a water bath.
Next, put this mixture on a baking sheet moistened with cold water, level and put in a warm oven. When the marsh dries, cut it into pieces and store in a glass container. 
How to prepare juice
Among the many different hawthorn drinks the most simple to prepare are compotes and juices.
Learn more about harvesting pears, dogwoods, apricots, yoshta, gooseberries, viburnum, blueberries for the winter.Despite the fact that the fruit itself is not juicy, to prepare the juice from it is not a problem. On 2 kg of pulp without stones, take 200 g of sugar and 4 liters of water. The pulp is boiled until soft and rubbed through a sieve, then sugar and the remaining water are poured, brought to a boil and poured into jars, which are rolled up and wrapped.
By the way, according to a similar recipe, hawthorn is harvested and compote, only sugar is needed twice as much. 
Dried hawthorn for the winter
The process of making dried hawthorn is similar to the process of drying the berries, only they are soaked for 10-12 hours in a saturated sugar syrup, then removed, allowed to drain and dried in any available way.
Important! Drinks do not boil, but only bring to a boil in order to preserve all the useful substances in them.
Other unusual blanks: sweets, marmalade and other sweets.
You can make tasty and fragrant candies, thick beautiful marmalade and many other goodies from the berries of the year.
- Marmalade is prepared as follows: the bones are extracted from the berries, poured with water and boiled until soft. Then the mass is ground, sugar is added there, and all this is cooked over low heat to the desired density with constant stirring. Ingredients: for 2 kg of berries take 2 kg of sugar and 1.2 liters of water.
- On the basis of this marmalade can make sweets. To do this, in the ready, non-hot marmalade add starch in the amount of 100 g per 1 kg of weight, mix everything well. This mass in a thin layer (1.5-2 cm) is evenly distributed on a wooden platform and, after cutting into cubes, left to dry in a well-ventilated room for 2-3 days.
- Another interesting delicacy of hawthorn fruit is candied fruit. In order to prepare them, take 2 kg of seedless berries, 2.4 kg of sugar, 0.6 l of purified water and 4 g of citric acid. They make syrup out of water and sugar, put berries in it and leave it for the night. In the morning, put on the fire and boil for 15 minutes, at the end adding acid. In the evening, cook the third time until soft. Next, the fruits are removed, allowed to drain to the syrup, laid out on a tray, sprinkled with fine sugar and dried for several days.
Did you know? Translated from the Greek hawthorn means "strong", and called it so, according to one of the versions, thanks to solid and durable wood. Although there is another version: the plant is a long-liver and can live up to 400 years.Having prepared hawthorn in the fall, you will be able to replenish the supply of missing nutrients in the winter months and to please your household with delicacies from this amazing berry, given to us by nature. So do not regret spending a few autumn days for the harvesting and processing of these beautiful fruits - they are worth it.
