Friday Foraging #90 - 7th March 2025

Calendula

Calendula Officinalis

Rather than trying to find good quality Calendula in the wild, grow your own, it is so easy and thrive in most gardens even in a pot.

You can buy packs of seeds for £2-3 and then pop them straight outside into the ground if its warmer, or plant them into growing pots on a windowsill or in a greenhouse of shed.

They like a sunnier position and you will need it to have good access so that you can keep cutting the flowers for harvesting. The plants are fairly frost tolerant too, so you can get established plants to rebloom in late autumn as long they are protected from any hard freezes.

I like to scatter my seeds rather than grow in lines, but that depends how regimented you want to see your garden in summer. Plant the curled seeds in your garden from early spring onward. Allow some plants to produce mature seeds to scatter where you want to see calendula seedlings in subsequent seasons.

Calendula blossoms are edible and can be used to bring orange colour to rice or potato dishes, or snip them onto soups or salads for extra flavour and nutrition. Use clean scissors to snip off petal tips, and compost the rest. They will save for up to 2 years if dried properly and stored in an airtight container.

Cut the flowers as soon as they fully open, preferably in late morning after the dew had dried. Calendulas make marginal cut flowers because they partially close at night. For medicinal use harvest and dry entire calendula flowers. Infuse them in vegetable oil to make a medicinal oil with a long history of use for healing burned or abraded skin.