Making Medicine with Calendula officinalis

Howdy friends, welcome back to the channel. In today's video I'm going to be making medicine with calendula. First, before I get started with calendula, if you're new here, howdy, hello, my name is Corinne. I am a clinically trained herbalist based out of Ontario, Canada, and I talk about all things plants. I like to dabble in homesteading, I do some canning and fermenting and other preservation methods. I'm big into home cooking and of course medicine making, so if that is your jam I hope you stick around. So the first thing I want to talk about is the proper identification of this plant. So this is pot marigold flowers, the common name, the botanical name is calendula officinalis. As you can see this is not the same as the marigolds that my mom would buy every year and plant in the garden. I'm actually going to go over and show you what those look like now. Okay and so friends here we have marigold flowers. As you can see they look completely different, their leaves are even different. They're a completely different botanical family and so I have seen some people talk about using them interchangeably and based on my knowledge, now if you've got some like a monograph or something on this plant not calendula officinalis that talks about its medicinal properties, please link that below. I'd love to know but as far as I'm aware of they are not interchangeable and so while this is an amazing, it's beautiful, it's an annual, it'll keep flowering all summer long and it's a great companion plant for your vegetable garden, it isn't one that I use medicinally. So over the years we have been asking for ways to keep away mosquitoes and all of you have had great suggestions which I'm very grateful for. A lot of them we have tried friends, we have planted all of the lemongrasses and the citronellas, it doesn't work not when you're as wet as we are and as buggy as we are by burning coffee grounds. That seems to be something that kind of works so try it out, it's natural. We don't like using DEET or a lot of like chemicals on the property if we can avoid it and this seems to keep them at bay but I digress. Let's go back to calendula. So a lot of people are aware of this plant for its topical purposes. It's often used in face creams, serums, baby products because it's really gentle but there's a lot of other reasons why I would want to work and harvest this plant. Now I'm not going to be making an infused oil today, today I'm going to be making tincture but feel free. I've got lots of references, I'll link my tincture guide below and I'll link a blog post where I talk about how to make infused herbal oils. Feel free to do that as well but I don't need any of that in my apothecary so I'm going to be focusing on the tincture. So for tincture I really like using the whole plant and so what I'm going to do is take about the top, I'd say three to four inches right about here and I'm going to cut that. When I get inside I'll show you but I'm going to strip off the leaves, oh hello pollinator friend, I'm going to strip off the leaves and the flower because the stalk is mostly inert. This is actually the case for most medicinal plants so when you're thinking about how much you need to harvest in terms of weight you've got to keep in mind that you're going to be discarding that stalk but in terms of let's say I wanted to make an infused oil I would probably just take the flower wait until my pollinator friend leaves. I like to use scissors for harvesting because this plant is very resinous it's actually one of the things you have to keep in mind in terms of working with the plant because it's very very astringent so that's really its only contraindication. I'm careful about what other plants I combine this with so like let's say I'm not going to combine it with other well-known astringents like red raspberry leaf or lavender what else is astringent pine is really astringent but because it's so sticky I can already feel it I do like to use scissors if I can. Topically we love this plant because it's what we call a vulnerary. Vulneraries are herbs that help to heal tissues so you can see why a lot of people like to use it in things like healing salves, poultices and other first aid type products. It's also a broad spectrum antimicrobial so what that means is it's going to help to fight viruses, bacterias, protozoals and fungi so you can see again why this often gets the pollinators are just loving it often gets used in things like say like a diaper cream because it'll help with any fungus issues you might be having. So that's one of the reasons we like to use it topically. It's also a really good vascular tonic so vascular tonics are herbs that help to tone blood vessels. Topically what does that look like that's something like spider veins varicose veins hemorrhoids so you could infuse this and say like a witch hazel and use it as a topical spray for after delivering babies or if you have issues with varicose veins and you just want to apply it that way. It's got a lot of really great for topical. So I talked about all the amazing topical uses so you're wondering Corinne why am I why are you going to be making this into a tincture and while I don't use it that often there's a few areas where it really shines. I love using it for its immune stimulating properties. A lot of people don't know calendula for this but it's great for supporting the immune system. It's what we call a febrefuge. These are herbs that help to modulate fever so think about and because it's antiviral and it's a lymphatic so it's going to support the lymphatic system which is where most of our white blood cells hang out you can see how this all around is a really good immune herb to have so I like using it for that. I also really like using it for its internal vascular properties so while it's not a cardiac specifically it can help support other herbs that and it's also a pretty decent little uterine tonic so good for toning that muscle. It doesn't have any hormonal properties that I am aware of but it's still something that I like to have in clinic. I don't make a lot of tincture from this but I like I said I do like to have it around. So my husband actually just asked he's my cameraman today asked a really great question he's like they all look so different and they are all technically calendula fissionalis. What I wanted to point out which was super cool is friends I did not plant a single seed this year so while calendula is an annual in my zone which is kind of like a borderline zone four maybe zone five I don't know we get pretty high winds here these all self-seeded so what I'll do is here babe if you can get a little closer so some of these guys okay so for example this plant has gone to flower and it's now kind of going to seed I'm gonna leave it alone and it's just gonna drop its seeds right back into this garden bed and it will produce flowers for me next year so I always make sure I leave a bunch of the seed pods and nature does the work for me so while it is an annual it will self-seed. I'm back inside away from the heat I don't handle this kind of heat very well so now I'm going to start processing my calendula and what that means is I'm going to take my scissors and I'm going to cut the flower heads off and then I'm going to pull off any leaves and then discard this main stock like I said I'm going to be making tincture if you want my free tincture guide there is a link below I'm actually going to include this bud as well I really like making whole complete medicines where I'm using almost all the parts of the plant of course again not the stock because it's mostly fiber and there's you know it's an fairly inert in terms of medicinal properties so this part takes a while and it allows you to connect with a plant in a lot of ways so I actually enjoy processing plant material in this way now I know there's going to be some of you friends I get this comment all the time Corrine this is great but how do I take this and as much as I would love to be able to tell you I can't and let me tell you why the reason is is YouTube has rules about me providing specific medical information diagnosing or anything along those lines the platforms in which I share my material owned by Metta so that would be places like Instagram and Facebook they also have rules about sharing personalized like or specific medical information and last but not least Health Canada prohibits me from providing specific dosages or treatment protocols if I haven't had an appointment with you so as much as I would love to be able to share this information I can't but you know where I can share it with you is if you become one of my students and you join my membership platform there I can pretty much share whatever I want which is a really beautiful thing so my students there they learn how to formulate they learn how to dose tinctures they learn how to make medicines in a more in-depth way so if that's something that interested interests you you can scroll down into the description and check out weavers of plant wisdom when I make tinctures I do everything by weight if you want more detailed instructions and information you can click on like go to the description below and grab my free tincture guide but what I wanted to show you there was I had to harvest almost double the amount because when I discarded all of the stems that's when I got that 87 grams which is what I want for a pint or a 500 milliliter jar like I said grab that tincture guide below so now I'm going to get to chopping my herbs but I want to talk about the contraindications a little bit because oh and by the way this blade is called everybody loves it there's also a link below if you want to snag yourself one as well I do recommend getting like a wider blade some of them are shorter but this certainly is much easier to work with but the contraindications are largely in part due to the resinous properties of the plant so if you're working with this plant if you've ever worked with it before you know it is sticky and your fingers stick together and it's all gummy and it's often those properties that when taken long term internally can cause some irritation so it's again why we don't usually take this for long periods of time and we don't combine it with other astringent plants now because of its immuno like its immune stimulant properties we're also very cognizant if we are on any immunosuppressant medications folks who are on these medications they know most of the time it's because they've had organ transplants so they're well aware if they are on these meds because it does have some nervine properties I'm also careful when combining with things like antidepressants anxiety meds anticonvulsants that kind of thing and because it does have some action on the lymphatic system I'm pretty sure it's got some minor detoxification properties and so I'm always cautious when my clients are either lactating or pregnant all right I've got my herb material chopped to the consistency that I like this is also going to help it to actually fit in the jar if I hadn't have chopped it there's no way that herb material was going to go in there and it's funny because I often tell my in-person students I run workshops all year round but mostly in the summer when herbs are blooming that making a tincture is actually really easy you just chop up plant material drown it in booze label it and you're done the hard part is knowing how to take it so again that's where if you want to deepen your knowledge with plants and herb material you can check out my monthly membership platform weavers of plant wisdom and see if it is your cup of tea now I'm almost done it's again this is so sticky there's a lot of moisture too in calendula so if you're making an oil from it and you're using fresh you've got to be cognizant of that but like I said I'm going to post that blog post below so that way you've got that information as well and so now all I'm going to do is try to get some of this in there and just pour the alcohol over it it's pretty simple now you don't have to do things by weight like the way I do I do run a herbal clinic so I like all of my medicines to be fairly uniform at a one to five herb to alcohol ratio you can kick this folk school friends and you can just chop up a bunch of herb material and stick it in a jar I do like to use a piece of parchment paper as a barrier between the alcohol and the metal lid of my mason jar because I have found because I've had some people be like alcohol doesn't corrode metal like maybe it doesn't friends but when you combine it with the resins that are in most plants it does and there's nothing worse than taking off that lid and finding that your lid has started to corrode and it's flaking pieces of metal into your medicine which to me contaminates the whole darn thing so that extra little piece of parchment paper does a world of good alrighty friends I've got my tincture labeled I like to put the name of the plant the herb to alcohol ratio and the date that I made this and this is going to get tucked in my tincture cabinet which is a cool and dark location this is ideally where you want to store your tinctures they need to sit for at least six weeks before you press them if you don't know what that means I've got a video on what it means to press a tincture so you can check that out but I generally don't strain out or press the herb material until I need it I let it sit or let it sit in this form with the herb still in it this one's leaking I filled it a little bit too much so I have to keep wiping it down but I usually let it sit with the herb material in it until I need it in clinic then I'll press it and I like to use it up within a year now if you've got any questions or comments about this video of course knowing that I cannot provide you any specific diagnosing or dosing information you can leave those below and until next time this is Corrine from Spirea Herbs wishing you health wellness and happy medicine making.