Calendula Flower

[SunKat]

1. How to Grow Calendula in Your Garden

Calendulas are a very prolific, easy to grow annual flower.

Propagation

Sow Calendula seeds early in the season, and cover lightly with 1/4" of garden soil. They germinate easily and will grow quickly, producing their first of a continual display of blooms by mid-summer.

Select a location in your garden where they can grow undisturbed for years and years, as these flowers will drop their seeds and reseed your flowerbed each year. Space plants 15" apart.

How to Grow Calendula

Improving your soil quality will produce much healthier plants and flowers, so add plenty of compost once in a month

Water them during dry periods, once or twice per week.

Early in the summer, your plants will begin to produce large flowers on long stems. As you pick the flowers for indoor arrangements, look carefully on the stem and the undersides of the leaves for aphids. Pick dead blooms to keep the plants neat looking and to encourage new blooms.

2. Calendula and Its Uses

Calendula has great anti-inflammatory properties and vulnerary properties. Its uses are varied -- from soothing minor skin disorders like pimples and dry chapped lips to curing chicken pox etc.

Calendula can stimulate blood circulation and cause sweating,thus lowering fever for this reason, calendula is good to be applied at the beginning state of measles, rashes or chicken pox.

If you have chicken pox apply calendula tinctures / oil to each pox for stop itching and eruption.

Many mothers find it wonderful for diaper rash.

Calendula oil promotes the rapid healing of slow healing wound and eases persistent ulcers, burns, bruises,boils, rashes, injuries, varicose veins and bleeding including hemorrhoids.

Calendula oil can be used for earache and other infections.

As a natural antiseptic, it can prevents the harmful bacteria.

Cooled calendula tea can be used as an eyewash for sore, red and irritated eyes.

3. How to Make Calendula Oil

Herb-infused oils are easier to prepare with dried herbs rather than fresh herbs because there is less chance of fermentation due to water content in fresh material.

We use expeller or cold-pressed seed oils that contain no preservatives (such as almond oil or extra virgin olive oil), and we make small batches that can be used up within a few months. We use this oil as is, and we also add it to salves and lip balms we make, as well as bath and massage oils.

4 parts oil
1 part dried calendula petals

In a clean glass jar, pour oil over herbs, covering them completely. Place jar(s) into a yogurt maker or turkey roaster (the temperature needs to remain between 110 and 120 degrees) and leave them for 10 to 14 days, stirring every day. The oil will become infused with the aroma and color of the herb.

Strain finished oil through cheesecloth into a clean jar, pressing on the herb to remove the essence. If there is any extra particulate in the oil, let it sit overnight and pour off the clear oil, leaving anything that settled in the bottom behind.

Label the oil, and store in a cool, dark place. Use within a month or two.

Note: Any time an herb leaf, flower, stem or root is mixed with oil, the process creates a chance for bacteria, mold or fungus to grow. Therefore, it is important that all equipment be scrupulously clean and plant material is clean and dry.

Adding a small amount of vitamin E oil (about 2 to 3 teaspoons vitamin E oil per cup of finished oil) will help prevent the mixture from turning rancid. We make our oils and salves in small amounts and use them fairly quickly. Otherwise, adding a preservative is recommended.

4. Homemade Calendula Tinctures

The reason we like to tincture our calendula flowers is to preserve their medicinal qualities so the tincture can be added to teas and baths, astringent solutions for cosmetic purposes and as first aid for wounds.

1/2 cup tightly packed whole, dried calendula flowers
1 ounce distilled water
4 ounces grain alcohol, 190 proof
Grind dried flowers in a spice or coffee grinder (one not yet used for coffee) or use a mortar and pestle. Grinding will reduce the flowers to a powder measuring 1/4 cup (about 20 grams, or a scant 1 ounce).

Place the powder in a pint jar with a tight-fitting lid. Add water to alcohol in a measuring cup and stir. Pour this mixture of alcohol and water over the herbs. Stir to completely dampen every particle of herb. Shake the tincture twice a day for 14 days.

On the 15th day, let the jar sit undisturbed. On the next day, gently pour the tincture (decant) into another container, such as a jar or measuring cup.

Press the finished calendula petals by using either a tincture press or by emptying the herb into a piece of cheese cloth or muslin, wrapping and pressing down to extract all of the essence from the tinctured herb; combine this final-pressed mixture with what has been poured off. Filter if desired.

Store in a labeled opaque glass bottle. Approximate dose is 1 to 2 ml, three to four times a day.