Summer is drawing to a close here in Washington. The air is cooling off and busy back to school planning has begun. Amidst this transition, the sunny yellow and orange calendula (Calendula officinalis) flowers continue to bloom in my garden. I feel thankful for their bright, cheery color, and the reminder they provide of warm, lazy, sunny days.
I pick the flowers from my garden most every day. As long as I'm doing this, the plants just keep producing more and more flowers, so I only need a small patch to build up my year supply of flowers.
I just pick the flower heads, snapping them off the stem just below the sepal. It takes only a few minutes to fill my small basket with their golden beauty.
Some of these flowers I will add fresh to our dinner salad. I simply pull the petals from the center and sprinkle them on top of the salad. True the petals add a mild bitter flavor which will enhance digestion of all your food, but mainly they add the beauty of bright color to your dinner, bringing joy to your table.
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Calendula in our salad...
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I will also freeze quite a few of my flowers. I have been adding flowers to this bag all summer long. I love to have the frozen flowers on hand throughout the winter for poultice making. Calendula poultices are great for pulling the heat out of burns and infections and for soothing any kind of inflammation or skin irritation. We used these poultices very successfully to treat one of Hailey's infected chicken pox.
Calendula is also astringent, antiseptic and antibacterial so the poultices are very effective for healing cuts and scrapes, fever blisters, and cold sores.
Making a poultice from frozen flowers is very simple. Remove a few flowers from your bag and place them in a mortar and pestle. Add about a tablespoon of water and mash with the pestle.
Place the poultice directly on the affected area. If you will be moving around, you can cover the poultice with a bandage or gauze and tape. Change the poultice out as needed - maybe every half hour if you are drawing the heat out of a burn or infection.
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Frozen flowers...
Poultice making...
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Finally, I will dry some of my flowers. To do this, simply lay your flowers out on a screen, paper, canvas, or cheesecloth in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight. Dry them until you are certain there is no more moisture in them. Be aware that they tend to stick to the surface of whatever you are drying them on. You may want to move them around with your hands daily to help prevent this.
You can then store them in a paper bag, taped shut with duct tape. I have found that labeling the bags on the side with the contents and date allows for easy storage and retrieval. You can also store them in plastic ziplock bags, but you will then want to keep them in the dark for prolonged storage as light saps the medicinal qualities of your plants. Stored in this way, the dried flowers will last for a full year.
I have been using my dried calendula flowers to make a daily foot soak for myself. Calendula has anti-fungal properties, and I have had a fungal issue with one toe for many years. I have tried a number of different remedies with no success. This foot bath has been amazing. I no longer experience any itching, and the dry flaky skin is finally clearing up. The itching could get quite intense at times, so this is very exciting progress for me! I plan to continue the nightly foot bath through September with the hope of complete healing.
To make my foot bath, I start by making a calendula infusion. Before putting the kids to bed at night, I put 3/4 cup of calendula flowers in a quart jar and pour boiling water over them to fill the jar.
When I've finished reading to them (about 1 hour later) my infusion is ready to strain. I strain it directly into my foot bath container and compost the flowers.
I then add some hot water to the bath until it is deep enough to cover my feet, and soak them for about 20 minutes while relaxing and reading a book of my own. Calendula is wonderful for our skin, so I put both feet in the bath, and this treatment becomes a relaxing, nourishing treat for myself at the end of my busy days.
Calendula is one of those plants that has so many uses we cannot possibly tell you all of them in one article. I encourage you to experiment with some of the uses in this article and to continue to research and experiment with this plant on your own.
Calendula flower muffins? Rice? Butter? Skin cream? Lip balm? You can find loads of others ways to use Calendula on HerbMentor.com.
Happy Late Summer!
Kimberly
