Calendula Workshop! Learn to make 12 healing projects with this wonderful healing plant

Upcoming Workshop:
Calendula! 12 healing projects, and learn to grow, harvest, dry & use this healing plant
Date: Sat, July 21 (pre-registration required)  REGISTER HERE
Time: 1-3 pm
Facilitator: Karin Kliewer, traditional herbalist
Location: Little City Farm

Join this hands-on herbal class focusing on the well-known and loved healing plant ally Calendula. This anti-inflammatory, anti-viral, skin soothing plant has been used for hundreds of years around the world as a healing herb. It is so revered that it has been considered a sacred flower in several cultures, including India, Mexico, and by the ancient Mayan and Aztec. We will cover all you need to know for growing, harvesting, drying and using this gorgeous flower.

We will share our 12+ favourite uses for the treasured calendula: from daily skin and lip care; to first aid remedies for cuts & scrapes; healing salve for rashes; homemade calendula hydrosol (aka. flower water); soothing bath blend; uplifting tea blend; stomach soothing food plant; traditional dye plant; & more.

During the class you will learn how to prepare calendula oil, salve, tincture, tea, and bath blend, and when/how to use them. We will also talk about how to make homemade high quality hydrosols (healing flower waters). Each participant will make and take home:

• a calendula tea blend
• a calendula healing salve / lipbalm
• plant a small container garden with calendula seeds to take home and grow
• small sample of calendula hydrosol (if we complete this during our class)

Calendula grows quickly and you don't need a large garden for calendula, it can be grown in any sunny location such as a patio, balcony, driveway, small yard, community garden plot, etc.

Please inform us of any allergies at time of registration. We will be using olive oil, cocoa butter, local beeswax, and certain essential oils in our class.

More info & registration here.

Calendula Harvest & Salve Recipe

It's calendula harvest time in the garden.  One of my favourite herbs, a general go-to (along with lavender) for all purpose gentle healing benefits - such as skin rashes, baby diaper changes, sun burn, as lipbalm, for  scrapes and minor irritations on the skin.  Calendula is a very easy to grow annual, that readily self-seeds (the seeds are large and obvious, so scatter well in the fall in preparation for next spring's garden).  Calendula officinalis comes in many shades of yellow to orange - but one of my favourite medicinal varieties is the Resina, which has a high resin content making it perfect for oils, salves and tinctures.  Calendula is also an edible flower, the petals are lovely in salads or for garnishing cakes.
 
Here is a very simple calendula salve recipe to try for your own first aid cupboard:

Simple Calendula Salve

You will need:
3 cups olive oil, in which 6 oz wilted (or 4 oz dried) calendula petals have been infused
3 oz shaved pure beeswax (or more)
3 oz cocoa butter (or more)
4 tsp vit E oil
1/2 tsp each pure essential oils lavender (at time of bottling)

Method:
1) Make herbal oil infusion by adding 6 oz calendula petals to the 3 cups olive oil in a clean dry glass mason jar with tight fitting lid.  It's absolutely important that jar and lid are dry so herbal oil does not risk becoming moldy.  Steep in a sunny window for 4-6 weeks shaking jar every few days (this is called a solar infusion).  Or, for a quicker method, steep in a crock pot on lowest setting for about 12 hours.

2) Strain oil, compost herbs and reserve the infused herbal oil.  It should be a darker richer colour than when you started.

3) Add oil to stainless steel saucepan, warm slowly on low heat.  Add beeswax and cocoa butter and vitamin E oil.  Stir gently until all is melted and fully combined.

4) Take off heat, and test with a spoon for proper consistency (i.e. drip a few drops of the hot salve onto metal spoon and when it cools you know what the thickness will be like).  Add more oil to soften salve, or more beeswax to firm it up as needed.

5) Add pure essential oil (we suggest lavender for added healing benefit).  Stir well, then pour into your containers and let firm up.  It will be nice and firm when salve is cooled.  Finished salve can be stored in the fridge (for a really firm salve) or at room temperature.  It's best to use dark glass containers or keep containers out of direct sunlight to preserve salve.  Salve should keep at least 1-2 years if stored properly.

First calendula

The calendula is ready to blossom.  In fact, the first flower opened a few days ago, and the others are coming soon.  We harvest the flower tops continuously so they keep blooming all summer long.  They can be dried in baskets or on screens, to make into calendula oil and salves.  Calendula is another one of those herbs I would not do without, right next to lavender as being a favourite in our family herbal first aid remedy stash.  Calendula salve is great for dry skin, minor cuts, eczema, rashes, and other skin conditions.  Check out our popular calendula healing salve here.  We've been making this salve for many years now, and have had great success and wonderful reviews from happy customers.  We also offer regular workshops on making herbal salves so if you are interested and want to take a course with us, please look at our workshop schedule here.

Calendula harvest

This seems to be an abundant flower year.  I have never had such a bountiful crop of calendula blossoms, that we keep harvesting over and over, and they just keep on blooming.  And what a good thing to have so much, since I never seem to have enough calendula for all the winter months where we use it in salves, soaps and tea.  If I was to pick a list of top ten valuable medicinal herbs to grow in a home garden, calendula would be at the top of the list (right next to lavender, peppermint, red clover, plantain, comfrey - oh, it's so hard to choose!)  Did I mention, the bees love calendula too? 

To harvest and dry calendula - pick flowers fresh on a sunny day when they are fully opened, after the morning dew has evaporated but before flowers are wilted by the heat of mid-day.  To harvest continuously keep picking fresh flower heads before they start to form seed heads, and your plants will continue to blossom.  I like to let some calendula go to seed early on in the season so that I ensure a good supply of seeds to self-seed in the garden when they fall, and also to harvest and keep for next year's planting.  Dry calendula on open screens or in wicker baskets, with good air circulation but out of direct light.  They should be fully dried before storing, and can be stored in clean dry glass mason jars with tight-fitting lids, kept in a dark dry cupboard. 

New soaps - from the garden

New batches of soap have just come out of the molds - with freshly dried lavender and calendula just harvested from the garden sprinkled on top.  Both soaps are also made with a strong infusion (tea) of lavender and calendula as the base liquid to which the lye is added, so this gives medicinal healing value to the soap bars as well as sweet scent and beauty.  I had to take a short hiatus from soapmaking during the busy May-July garden months, but it's nice to get my hands back into this as I really do love the process of making soap from scratch.  More batches to come soon, as I am getting stocked up again for the fall.

Calendula harvest

Calendula, one of my all-time favourite herbs for it's vast medicinal applications, ease of growing, and beauty, is at it's peak!  We have been harvesting baskets of it each day, as you need to keep picking the flower heads in order to maintain flower production.  At this point we are ready to let some of the flowers go to seed, some of which drop to the soil and will self-seed in the same plot next year.  Others we'll save indoors and direct seed in April.

Here is a quick note on making herbal salves with calendula from an earlier post.

Calendula harvest

I've been harvesting herbs - calendula is flowering in abundance, one of my favourite herbs! Also raspberry leaves, lemon balm, mints, catnip, yarrow, sage, echinacea, lavender, st. johns wort, bergamot, comfrey, nettle, and basil are all ready to be harvested. I have converted our grow light stand in the kitchen into a drying rack, by adding mesh screening across the frames. I can quickly dry large quantities of herbs, then move them into paper bags to be stored in a cool dark location for best quality. I also have a larger herb drying area in the barn, hanging them off the rafters in bundles. There is good air circulation and a cross-breeze in the barn loft which is key to quick drying.