Krista's Herbarium
a collection of herbal remedies, recipes, and reveries
Herbal Workshop: Wellness
My Wellness Herbal Workshop was a great success. My fellow Herbal Warriors and I had a great time together making Fairy Tea and Calendula Salve.
After arriving at my house, each participant was given a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and also an orange smoothie. While they enjoyed the refreshing juice, we went over the recipes for that day’s herbal remedies. Wellness Recipes 22.4
We chatted for a while about the medicinal actions of the plants we were using. The workshop that day focused on plantain, calendula and lavender and lemon balm.
Then it was off to work. The first task was to pick petals off of dried calendula blooms for the Fairy Tea. The green sepals can make the tea bitter. Then we took turns mixing the rest of the herbs with the petals in a big bowl.
Everyone put the tea mix into tea sacks, complete with labels and ingredients lists, so they could enjoy their handmade tea at home.
Next up was the Calendula Salve.
The first task was to make calendula-infused olive oil, the base for the Calendula Salve. This requires the fine chopping up of the calendula blooms. We used a Sana 707 juicer to accomplish the task efficiently.
Using a bread maker, the oil was infused quickly. This oil was used to make the salve.
Beeswax was added and melted into the oil over a very low heat and carefully stirred. Lavender essential oil is added. The warm liquid salve is poured into containers and custom labels are then affixed.
While the salve was cooling we took a garden walk to point out the fresh herbs that were used in the recipes.
The herbal goodies were popped into little bags, ready to take home.
I think everyone had a great time learning how simply and beautifully our health can be taken back into our own hands.
Fairy tea: Lavender, plantain, calendula and lemonbalm
An all-around wellness tea: healing, soothing, calming, gentle and tasty
Calendula Healing Salve: Calendula, olive oil, beeswax and lavender essential oil
A super skin healer: soothing, healing, anti-itch, antibacterial, scar healing
Photo credit: Zeinep Yessenbekova
4 Comments on “Herbal Workshop: Wellness”
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Krista's Herbarium 
When we made salve, we just filled jars with the herbs, covered them with olive oil and then left them for more than a month. The olive oil was then mixed with bee’s wax to make the salve. It was not something we could have done in a day.
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There are several ways to infuse oil. Up until about two years ago, I infused oil in a sunny windowsill for about six weeks. Now, I find the bread maker method does a better job more efficiently. The products I made two years ago compared with today’s are vastly different. These recent ones are more potent.
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Oh, that is unfortunate. I prefer to not use appliances.
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It all depends on your needs. Simpler is most often better, and time, love and energy makes good medicine. On the other hand, when a client calls and needs a remedy the next day, it is awesome to know that there is a way to make that happen. It’s all about helping and healing, there are many paths to the right outcome.
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