If there's one flower we'd tell every gardener to grow, it's calendula. It's cheerful, forgiving, flowers for months, and the bees love it. On the farm it's also the start of our balms and oils.
Growing it
- Sun: give it a sunny spot. It'll cope with part shade, but flowers best in full sun.
- Soil: it isn't fussy. Ordinary garden soil with a bit of compost (or worm castings, in our case) is plenty.
- Sowing: the big curly seeds are easy to handle, so it's a great one to sow with kids. Push them about 1cm deep.
- Keep picking: the more flowers you pick, the more it makes. Leave a few to go to seed and it will happily self-sow for next season.
Picking
We pick the flower heads mid-morning on a dry day, once the dew has gone but before the heat of the afternoon. Fully open flowers are best.
Drying
Lay the heads out in a single layer on trays or screens, somewhere warm, airy and out of direct sun. Turn them every day or two. They're ready when the petals are papery and the centres feel dry right through, usually a week or two depending on the weather.
Store them in a clean, airtight jar away from light. If there's any hint of dampness, give them a few more days before jarring, or they can go mouldy.
Into the jar
From there, our dried calendula is slowly infused into olive oil, our carrier oil, alongside chickweed and plantain from the garden, ready for our handmade balms and oils.
Sown, grown and packaged with care. If you have a question about growing calendula, send us a message. We love talking gardens.