Calendula is a beautiful resin-rich herb traditionally used for skin health, wound healing, and gentle lymphatic support. There are a large amount of varities of calendula with flwoers ranging from light yellow, to dark orange, redish. I like to grow several varieties in colors for a more beautiful garden.
In Swedish: Ringblomma
In English: Calendula
Latin: Calendula officinalis
Family: Asteraceae (daisy family)
Life Cycle in Sweden: Calendula is an annual plant, meaning it completes its entire life cycle in one season. It grows, flowers, sets seed, and dies back before winter. However, it often self-seeds generously and can return on its own year after year.
Appearance: Calendula hold flowers that are daisy-like and measure around 5–7 cm in diameter. Stems and flowers are resinous to the touch, this resin is where most of the medicinal value is found.
How to Start Calendula
You can grow calendula easily from seed, either by direct seeding outdoors or by starting seedlings indoors and transplanting them. Calendula seeds are large and easy to handle which can allow a better control for both indoor or outdoor sowings. Germination usually is quick, a week to 10 days.
Personally, I prefer direct sowing. It’s simple, requires less work, and calendula usually establishes well on its own in the field. However, Jeff and Melanie Carpenter (authors of The Organic Medicinal Herb Farmer) recommend starting calendula indoors and transplanting. They’ve found that it establishes better in the field this way and outcompetes weeds better
Seed depth: Sow 1 cm deep.
Indoor sowing: Start in March and transplant outdoors in May.
Direct sowing: Start in late April to early May, once the soil is workable.
Spacing: Plant 20-30 cm apart. Rows can be 30 cm apart.
Growing Conditions
Sun: Full sun is ideal.
Soil: Well-drained, fertile soil but it's quite adaptable and can tolerate poor soils.
Calendula is easy to grow. It loves full sun and doesn’t like too much water or humidity. In fact, calendula is sensitive to powdery mildew, which often shows up late in the season (like the end of October). By that time though, most of the flowers are gone and the plant has started going to seed, so it’s usually not a big issue.
If you start calendula indoors, make sure to water the transplants well and daily during the first week outdoors. Once the plants are established, they are quite independent and need almost no care. Just let them grow until they flower.
Harvest Specifications
Parts used: Fresh flower heads (the entire flower including petals and green base). Very important to have the green base! It contains most of the resins!
When to harvest: Harvest when the flowers are fully open but not yet faded. The best is to harvest calendula flowers during the heat of the day on a dry day. Under these conditions, the resin concentrations into the flowers are high, that your fingers should get sticky when picking. Harvest on a dry, sunny day, also a better drying and prevent the calendula to spoil.
How to harvest: Pinch or cut flower heads close to the base. Harvesting should be done every 2–3 days to encourage more blooms.
Drying and Storage
Drying calendula can be a little tricky, especially because the heart (center) of the flower is thick and moist. If not dried properly, this part can spoil before it dries fully.
The petals lose moisture quickly and are usually not a problem to dry. Hearts dry slowly, as the base of the flower holds a lot of water and can take a long time to dry.
Best drying conditions
Temperature: 35-40°C
Ventilation: Good airflow is essential to prevent mold.
Drying method: A dehydrator or drying room with controlled temperature and ventilation is ideal.
To check if the flower is fully dry, split it in half. Feel the center with your fingers, if it’s still damp, it needs more time. Don’t rely on crunchiness to judge dryness: dried calendula stays a bit soft because of its natural resins.
Yellow flowers often turn bright orange during drying, this is normal and beautiful! Orange and darker orange flowers keep their color.
Storage
Store dried calendula in a dark, dry place in airtight containers to preserve its color and medicinal properties. Light can fade its color and reduce its anti-inflammatory effects.
How to Prepare Calendula
Calendula is best used fresh. That’s when it contains the most resin, antioxidants, and volatile compounds that make it so healing for the skin and body. Once dried, some of these properties decrease or change. So if you want to make a calendula oil, tincture, or herbal infusion, use the fresh flowers when possible. There are special techniques to work with fresh herbs safely and effectively (especially for oils). I teach how to make calendula-infused oil in my Botanical Skincare Workshop, where you learn how to create your own high-quality herbal skincare.
Calendula is a versatile herb used in many forms:
Infusion (tea): For internal use to support digestion, the lymphatic system, and menstrual health. Use fresh or dried petals, often combined with other herbs.
Infused-oil: Great for balms, creams, salves, or poultice to apply on sensitive skins, red skin, inflammed skin, sun burn or excema.
Tincture: To support the lymphatic and digestive systems.
More information about traditional medicinal properties of calendula:
https://www.altheaprovence.com/souci-calendula-officinalis/ (use translator as this article is written by the French teacher of Althea Provence Online School)
Collecting back the seeds
If you leave the plants in the garden after they’ve flowered, the seeds will fall into the soil and self-sow, coming back the following year wherever they landed. The seeds survive Swedish winters so they’re ready to grow again in spring.
If you don’t want calendula taking over your garden, it’s better to remove the plants after they’ve seeded. Another option, which is what I personally do, is to harvest all the seeds by hand once they’re ready, leave the stems in place to protect the soil over winter, and use those saved seeds for next season. This gives you more control over where calendula grows. Just know that collecting all the seeds can be time-consuming.
Also note: some calendula varieties are hybrids. Their seeds are often still fertile, but they won’t grow true to type, they’ll be a mix of the parent plants used to create that hybrid. Unfortunately, I don’t yet know which varieties sold in Sweden are hybrids and which are not. But I plan to investigate this further as I gain more experience with different cultivars.
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