Calendula Harvesting - What to do with it ?

Calendula is a gorgeous little flower.   It is great as a companion plant in the vegetable garden as it helps with pests.  I planted some in the garden in a few spots.  One planting has become completely overgrown with weeds yet they still continue to flower.  I am getting a small handful of blooms every day. 

When I harvest I break the blooms off at the base of the flower and set them aside until I have enough for a tray in the dehydrator.

I place a silicon mat underneath as the petals tend to fall through my racks.   I usually have 3 or 4 different things in the dehydrator at one time to conserve energy.   After just a couple of hours they are nice and dry.

And ready to be processed.

I simply pop them all in a jar with a lid

Then I added 250ml of Avocado Oil (You can use almond oil, coconut oil, olive oil or any other type of carrier oil)

I then pop the lid on and will leave it for 6 or so weeks.  This will allow all of the wonderful properties and essential oils to blend with the carrier oil.  I am still harvesting flowers So I will continue to add them once they are dried.

I am planning to make a salve !  Have you used Calendula Salve ?

Calendula officinalis is anti-inflammatory, antiviral, anti-fungal, anti-microbial, and astringent. All of these things combined make it an herbal heal-all. It is most commonly used on minor cuts, scrapes, and burns as well as rashes and bug bites. Calendula is very gentle on the skin and may help to ease dryness, cracks, and itching. It is often used in herbal salves, creams, lotions, and soaps for this reason.

I am looking forward to giving it a try.  I will share my efforts with you once it’s done. 

Part of Harvesting and Preserving for future use is ensuring that you have enough plants to harvest from.  The best and cheapest way to have lots of plants is to grow from seeds.

It has become a little bit of an addiction.  

It is a really relaxing end enjoyable past time.  Not too hard on the body and something I can even do in the kitchen. 

I spent some time this week doing some direct sewing into the garden.  I planted Carrots, Blue Lake Beans, Yellow Butter Beans, Corn, Sweet Peas, Sunflowers and Jalapeño’s.

It amazes me just how easy it really is to grow plants from seed. One cucumber seed costs around 10c .  This little baby is an apple cucumber.  I planted just one seed in a little punnet with some seed raising mix and watched it come to life.  It is now planted in the garden.  I wonder how much I will harvest from my 10c seed ?

In the next blog post I will share with you some photographs from the little hot house that has seeds and seedlings at lots of different stages.  It’s only a few weeks before planting can begin in earnest around here once the last frost date passes.  Then things will be a little frantic for a few weeks.

Until then.

Hugs,

Fee x