Homemade healing salves from your garden.

Calendula Flowers

Collecting the flowers that grow in and around my garden is a relaxing and soothing task for me. I also love to collect some plants that grow wild. Feeling inspired by a friend bringing St John's Wort bouquet to work~ I went looking for a few plants I like to work with.
The Calendula was easy to find. I grow it in my garden and it easily will take over an area with little coaxing. But the St John's Wort was more elusive this year.  In the past it seemed to grow on every untended neighborhood corner. This year I have had a hard time finding this wonderful plant.
After my son fell asleep in the car on the way home from the farmers market yesterday I decided to wonder the neighborhoods surrounding our house to see if I would find some obviously unintended St John Wort plants. I did this because I noticed I had none growing in my own garden. I have to say this is definitely unusual. Normally, I have it growing everywhere like a weed. Not this year.

St John's Wort

Finally after slowly driving around with my eyes peeled to the particular flower of the St John's plant, I found just a few stands of this delicate flower. Being mindful to not take every plant, leaving some to reseed themselves, I harvested a handful of young plant stems and flowers.
Calendula-
I collected a group of calendula flower heads today. I will let them wilt a little to ensure there is no water on the petals. Then I will submerge them in a canning jar of olive or almond oil. Calendula is known for it's skin healing properties. I will probably drop the flowers heads into the oil on July 3rd because that is a fill moon and that just seems to make sense. Begin a project at the beginning of a new cycle, right? Why not, It can't hurt. I will infuse the oil for a few weeks and then remove the plant material and store the oil until the fall or winter when I will make a salve or healing oil from the infusion.
St John's Wort-
This plant I will also submerge in oil for an oil infusion after they have dried a bit, just like the calendula. I will probably make a salve with both Calendula and St John's Wort together to create a soothing salve for my family and friends. These could be used for any reason you might want to add a little healing help to your skin. I might add some lavender or tea tree essential oil to aid the healing process of the skin. Calendula could also be used as a wonderful moisturizer. You could create an emulsion with the caledula infused oil. An emulsion is basically a homemade lotion.
Let me know what you are making this summer season. I'd love to hear your comments.