Lavender, Calendula, and Chamomile Oil Infusion for Soap Making
Hello friends,
I've been collecting our lavender, calendula, and chamomile flowers all summer, with the intention of making my own cold-pressed soap with an olive oil infusion from the flowers this autumn. Years ago, when I lived in Wellington, I attended a cold-pressed soap making course, and I have been making my own for years since then. It's an interesting combination of gardening and crafting, with a big splash of science, and it's a lot of fun to make once you know how to take the safety precautions.
The first step was to gather the flowers I dehydrated over the summer. I store them under the stairs in our home, the temperature is cool and dry there, so it's perfect for storing dried flowers.
I then filled a glass container up as high as possible with the dried flowers.
Once the container was full, I filled the jar with olive oil.
I usually use olive pomace oil, but I didn't have enough to fill the entire jar, so I had to go out and buy some mellow olive oil. The cheapest olive oil is the best to use, as I hate using extra-virgin olive oil for soap making, when it could added to meals.
Once the olive oil was filled up to the top, I removed as many air bubbles as possible, and used a spoon to ensure the flowers were mixed evenly.
After putting the lid on the jar and dating it, I stored the jar in a cool, dry place for two weeks while it infused.
When the time was up I passed the olive oil infusion through a cheese cloth to remove as many flowers as possible. The olive oil had taken on such a beautiful orange colour, and smelled like lavender.
I've now stored the oil infusion away for couple of weeks until it's time to make the soap.
This was such a fun project to do, and I can't wait until soap making day in a couple of weeks.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Harvesting Calendula, Lavender, Chamomile, and Catnip
Hello friends,
It's a very busy time in the garden with lots of harvesting to do, and last week I finally got around to harvesting chamomile, lavender, calendula, and catnip.
It was a bit of a battle to work around the many honey bees, bumble bees, and native bees who were all doing some harvesting of their own, but I finally got the flowers harvested.
The calendula and chamomile went straight into the dehydrator, but I had to chop the lavender stems back to make the lavender flowers fit inside. My dehydrator now lives in the garage, as the scented air flow sets off my asthma.
Once that was done, it was time to harvest the catnip. I grow our catnip in the berry cage, as it's the only way of getting a harvest for our indoor cats, Missy and Rosie, without the neighbourhood cats destroying it first. The catnip plants however had grown like weeds, and were far too large to fit inside the dehydrator.
After giving the branches a trim, luckily there was enough space inside the glasshouse walkway to fit them all in, so I laid the catnip out flat to dry. I put an old mesh door over the glasshouse during the day to stop the birds eating my tomatoes, but it also handily fends off the neighbourhood cats too.
Now that all the plants are dry, they go into storage for later on in the year. I plan to use the chamomile, calendula, and lavender in soap making once I have the time and space to do it. And the catnip will go into the cat's stash of catnip I keep all year for them.
Do you spoil your fur babies with their very own catnip? I find homegrown catnap is much more potent than store bought.
Have a wonderful day.
Julie-Ann
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Harvesting Rhubarb, Peppermint, Calendula, and Strawberries
Hello friends,
It's now the part of spring where everything is growing quickly, and unfortunately that also includes many weeds. The good thing though is that we finally have stuff to harvest in the garden.
Our rhubarb plant has shot away and has produced many leaves, so it was time to harvest the first of the stems. We mostly use our rhubarb for our rhubarb and ginger meringue pie.
I pulled a bunch of rhubarb out off the plant, cut off the leaves,
and then cut the stems up into pieces to freeze away in our chest
freezer. I find that six stems of rhubarb are enough to make one rhubarb
and ginger meringue pie, so I freeze them away in batches of those. The good thing about freezing them is that the process turns the rhubarb into mush, which makes them easier to cook with afterward.
The next thing to harvest is peppermint. I like to harvest our peppermint in early spring for making dried peppermint leaves for peppermint tea. Our peppermint patch pops up everywhere in the herb garden, and beyond, so I just find whatever is on the edges, and then harvest them. It's really easy to do, just pull out any rogue peppermint stems, rinse them, and then pull off the leaves to slowly air dry, or by putting in the dehydrator. I dehydrate ours, and it doesn't take very long at all.
The first harvest of calendula flowers was also ready, and it is one of my favorite plants. Not only do bees love it, but you can use it in all sorts of products around the home.
I just pick the flowers when they're fully open, and then rinse and pat them dry before putting them in the dehydrator along with the peppermint leaves.
The last thing to harvest was the first of our strawberries. They weren't the most prettiest strawberries in the world, but they were good enough to put in the chest freezer for making strawberry jam later on in the growing season.
Are you harvesting anything in the garden yet? Labour weekend is this weekend, and it's a pretty busy time in the vegetable garden. All the garden beds have been dug, and I can't wait to get stuck in and plant everything currently sitting in our glasshouse.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
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