{"id":5271,"date":"2025-12-31T09:42:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:42:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/?p=5271"},"modified":"2026-01-02T10:58:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:58:41","slug":"calendula-salve-part-1-drying-the-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/?p=5271","title":{"rendered":"Calendula Salve Part 1\u00a0\u2013 Drying the Flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Calendula, July 28<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I love growing flowers in my community plot. Last year (2024) was the first year I grew calendulas. I decided to grow more this year (which could not have been easier as they self-seed like crazy) to make a calendula salve. Calendula has long been used as a medicinal plant<\/a> to soothe irritated skin and eczema as it has anti-inflammatory properties and is an excellent moisturizer. To make the salve, you need to make calendula oil<\/a>. The first step is drying the flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had been harvesting and drying calendula flowers all summer and fall. I only harvested unblemished flower heads that had just begun flowering. I tried to always harvest early in the morning on a dry day. The flowers were then placed \u201cface down\u201d on a paper towel-lined paper plate and left to dry for two to three weeks in a darkened room, away from direct sunlight, until they were crumbly. I dried and stored them in a dark corner in my bedroom, the coolest room in the house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Drying setup in mid August (the window blinds are normally drawn, I just pulled them up for the picture)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I harvested two plates worth once or twice a week and collected the flowers in a large mason jar once they were fully dried.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perfectly crisp dried specimen<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lovely shades of yellows and oranges<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Calendula harvest 2025<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love growing flowers in my community plot. Last year (2024) was the first year I grew calendulas. I decided to grow more this year (which could not have been…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,31,30,32,22,53,51,29,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-flowers","category-harvest","category-herbs","category-in-the-garden","category-medicinal","category-preserving","category-summer","category-techniques"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7mi2j-1n1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5271"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5828,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5271\/revisions\/5828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ninebyeighteen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}