Hey, friends! I have a fun new crafty gardening project for you today. I made some Calendula Salve and I’ll share the recipe with you.
First off, you need some Calendula flowers. I bought some seeds online during our quarantine and planted them in my small garden. They are doing well, but no flowers yet.
Fortunately, my son got a job as a loader at Flower World. I’ve been spending a bit more time there lately (hello discount!) and they had a few Calendulas in stock.
Once the plants have bloomed, pick the flowers. I cut the stem down to the next piece of plant growth, but then cut the stems off of the flowers to dry. I bought a dehydrator this year for my herbs and it works perfectly for this project too. I put the flowers in the dehydrator on the lowest heat possible, for several days. You really want your flower petals to be dry for this project so they don’t rot in the oil. That would make some really gross Calendula Salve.
In this next picture, you can really see the difference between the dry flowers and the freshly picked flowers. Once the flowers were dry, I picked off all of the petals and put them into a Mason canning jar and filled it up with olive oil. I let that sit for about 2 weeks.
After the two weeks were up, I strained the olive oil, discarding the petals.
In a double boiler, I melted one ounce of beeswax with 1 cup of Calendula infused olive oil. I let it cool a tiny bit and then added 40 drops of orange essential oil. I was planning on using lemon essential oil, but came across my orange oil first and decided to try it. Then, all you have to do is pour it into the little tins and let it set up. I’ve been using this on my hands lately. I wash my hands so much (because… Coronavirus) that they are really dry. I’ve read that this salve is great for cuts and scrapes. The Calendula adds a healing property. So there it is, folks. I hope you’ll give it a try. It was really easy and I’m happy to be able to put these flowers from my garden to good use.
Calendula Salve:
1 ounce of beeswax
1 cup of Calendula infused olive oil
40 drops of your favorite essential oil
Happy gardening!
