Touching Summer: Making Healing Balms

The upcoming growing season is on the horizon and it's time to make sure that everything from the previous season is realized.  

This week we hand painted and labeled all of our 2013 honey jars.  Here is a photo from 2012's honey batch on a previous post.  

And we decanted all of our calendula oils and made balms.  As herbal medicine is the medicine of the people, the process of making balms is totally accessible and relishable. I wanted to offer a simple recipe which you will find below.  If you have questions let me know!  

Calendula Flowers

Calendula in Oil Sitting Sunside

A bit of strained Calendula Jojoba Oil                                   

Balm Making Session with the Lovely: Karen, Trevor & Jen.  Thank you!!!

  

Last bit of heart shaped beeswax melting in Calendula Oil

Step One: Gather Calendula Flower

Calendula flowers have beautiful seeds and take to the earth very easily.

Step Two:  Lay flowers out to dry for a day.  

Calendula's moist healing properties can lend themselves to encouraging mold.  

Drying them out a bit helps reassure a mold-free process!

Step Three: Place calendula flowers in a clean and dry glass container.  

Cover flowers in oil.  Let sit in a sunny spot until ready to use.  

If you were to look in a book for how to make an oil, it might recoommend to put calendula oil on a heat mat for 2-6 weeks.  

But before the time of heat mats, we had sunshine and I like the method of placing jars in a spot where it receives both the sun and moon.  

A greenhouse is a nice cozy spot as well.

There are many types of oil options. The oil you choose will be determined by your final product's intended use, 

as well as what oils happen to be in your home.   

In this batch I used a blend of cold-pressed organic olive oil and wildcrafted jojoba oil.  

Olive oil is highly nutritive, stable and an all-around good option and jojoba is a very stable oil, 

easily absorbed into the skin and a bit thinner than olive oil and so a nice option for a face balm.  

Step Four: Strain Oil into Clean Dry Glass Jar 

Don't forget to squeeze out the oil from the flowers

Step Five: Heat up Oil 

A double boiler system is fantastic, with a glass bowl over a pot with boiling water.  

Heat the oil on low heat

Step Six: Add beeswax & dissolve into Oil

I like to use for every 1 cup of oil, 1 ounce of beeswax.  If you don't have a scale you can slowly add beeswax, melting it in the oil, and taking a spoon to test samples to gauge if you need more wax.  We didn't have enough beeswax this year from the farm so we supplemented with wax from Healing Spirits  Herb Farm.  Thank you!!

Step Seven: Take off heat and add anything else.  

This blend will cool and solidify rapidly so this next step I like to do with some haste.  

Some ideas: Essential Oil: 5-10 drops to 1 ounce

Vitamin E

Step Eight: Pour into containers and let cool before sealing

Share & Enjoy!

Ashwagandha Icecream

I started drinking warmed almond milk with ashwagandha powder and a sprinkling of herbs a few months ago.  I have slept so deeply the nights I have taken the time to enjoy this ritual.  Now that the heat of summer has arrived, the ritual has subsided and I have been experimenting with frozen yogurt.  Last night I made a batch of ashwagandha frozen yogurt.  It was the perfect - cooling - calming treat.  And I slept incredibly well.

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) is in the Solanaceae family.  Same family as potatoes, peppers and tomatoes.  Here in New England, we dig up the root after it has experienced a few frosts and set it out to dry, before grinding it up (I have also heard it recommended to harvest before frost.)  The root is where the medicine lies.  I have used the leaves to make salves and have heard that the berries can be used as an alternative rennet for making cheese, but the root is mainly where it is at.

Ashwagandha is an adaptogen, which enables the body to deal with stress, a mild sedative, helps focus the mind and many many other actions....anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, aphrodisiac, nutritive, immunomodulatory....  For those that have a disturbed spirit with a nervous state or the inability to sleep well this is incredibly useful, as well as for a weak system needing a boost.

Definitely the most special activity that ashwagandha offers, is that it is both an adaptogen and calming, which is quite a useful combination.


Here's a recipe for ashwagandha frozen yogurt icecream.
It is based on a frozen yogurt recipe that one of our dear apprentices Allyson gave me, as she is an extraordinary pastry chef.  

Ashwagandha root overtaking a cup of frozen yogurt and a jar of our powder

2 cups milk (dairy, nut or coconut milk)
1.1/4 cup yogurt (or can use dairy alternative)
1/4 cup sweetener (maple syrup, honey, sugar)
1/2 teaspoon guar gum
Pinch of salt
1.5 teaspoons-3 teaspoons ashwagandha powder
Optional: spices to your liking (cinnamon, cardamon, vanilla, nutmeg ... )


Mix all ingredients EXCEPT the guar gum, ashwagandha and spices.
Slowly add the guar gum while mixing.  Let the mix sit for 4 hours or more so the guar gum can absorb the liquid.  I leave this in the refrigerator.
Then blend in the ashwagandha and spices.

If you have an icecream maker pour this in.
If not, put it in a covered container into the freezer and every 30 minutes, mix it up, until it's at the right consistency for you.

Enjoy!