Cleaning a home can seem tedious and never ending—at least that’s the way I feel. Two months ago I moved into my friend’s home that is on the market. (It is a new trend to have your home staged by a renter. They get a discounted rent and you get to have your home staged with furniture.) Unfortunately, realtors and prospective buyers track mud all around the house and sometimes leave old coffee cups for me to clean up.

I’m constantly cleaning the 1950’s hardwood floors with my housewarming gift: a Swiffer Sweeper. I’m not a huge fan of the company’s dry cloths since they are not eco-friendly, but they do clean the floors nicely. (A great green alternative is the omop floor care by Method.) Now that I’ve used the trial pack, I decided to make my own version of Swiffer’s dry cloths out of an old towel.

The towel works great, whether it is used dry or with a cleaning product. Best of all, my cleaning doesn’t hurt the environment by tossing individually used cloths in the trash after each cleaning session.

Dry Cloth Towel 
Time: 20 minutes

• An old towel (any size will do)
• One foot of ribbon

1. Loosely trace the shape of the Swiffer so there is about a half of an inch on the shorter ends and an inch to an inch and a half on the longer sides.

2. Cut the rectangle out of the towel.

3. Sew all of the sides.

4. Cut your ribbon into three-inch strips, you will have four pieces of ribbon.

5. If you are using a swifter, you can use the cloth holders as a marker for where to sew the pieces of ribbon. Sew a ribbon strip to the edge of towel on the longer side of the rectangle.

6. Repeat step five to the remaining three sides.

Herbal Floor Cleaner  

• 1/8 cup plant-based liquid soap
• 1/8 cup distilled white vinegar
• 1 gallon water
• 10 drops lavender essential oil.

1. Mix the soap and vinegar into the water. Next add the lavender essential oil.

2. If you don’t like the lavender fragrance, you can swap it out for your favorite essential oil.

For more information on cleaning your home naturally, visit our blog series Naturally Clean.

Marguerite Dunne is a c ity girl and traveler. Visit her website at www.herbs-on-hudson.com or listen to her radio show, The Urban Herbalist, on www.wtbq.com. Marguerite was also the third place winner in The Herb Companion's essay contest, "Looking Forward to Herbs."

A friend asked me to be a guest speaker in her college class one night, with the noble task of explaining to her students how to get started using medicinal herbs. Twenty intelligent adults leaned forward as the spotlight was on me and I told the tale of how I got started with herbs. I talked about how the doctors had pumped me with drugs, which made me feel worse, and about how herbal roots and leaves were what gave me back my body.

One flustered 40-year-old lady raised her hand. She described, in scathing detail, her arthritis, hip replacements, autoimmune diseases and the various failing pill protocols the doctors placed her on and off and on and off for the past five years. She raged over a lopsided conversation she’d had with a young clerk in a health food store. Pounding her fist into her hand, to the beat of every spoken word, she intoned, “How do I know I’m getting the right medical advice when I go into a health food store?” 

What I would have liked to have said was, “So, you want to make sure this 18-year-old young woman in a health food store can give you the proper diagnosis to your illness, which three medical doctors and, collectively, 55 years of graduate medical school, have failed to correctly analyze? Did I get that right?”

It’s frustrating as heck when your body is going one way and you want it to go the other and nobody, but nobody, is giving you the right information and you just want some answers; when it isn’t like anything you or your friend has experienced before; when you did all the things the doctor told you to do! I remember how sick I was for three years after I stopped taking birth control pills: I lost my period, gained 30 pounds, got all kinds of allergies and suffered from 104 degree fevers for days. I went in for all kinds of tests and got all kinds of pills and shots from nine different doctors—nobody could tell me what was wrong with my body.

That was when an old and dear friend, turned me on to herbs. My friend took me to a chiropractor who adjusted my back and suggested I use aloe root and blue cohosh. Within two weeks, I got my period back for the first time in nearly three years and fifteen pounds fell off of me. I was sold!

My very first herb book, which I still recommend and now holds the highest place of honor on my bookshelf, was the original 1939 version of Back to Eden by Jethro Kloss (Lotus Press, 1997). Yeah, I know there are thousands of scientific studies about herbs and all kinds of texts with annotations written and efficient, systematic technobrews that have been sliced-and-diced-analyzed, investigated, footnoted, and refined, but after 30 years as a practicing herbalist, I still prefer the sweet sensibility of the wise, old healing shaman of the village. I learned so much from trying each herb. Sometimes, there is no exact name for one disease to explain all the knotty symptoms your body is showing. Locate which body system feels the most affected, and begin there. When anyone asks, I just say, “Start with one herb related to one health issue you want to work on.”  Jethro Kloss would approve.

Making your own household cleaners is a small investment upfront but, in the long run, is a cheaper and healthier alternative.

Homemade cleaners are toxin free and easy to make. If you want to know exactly what your cleaning products are made of, making your own is the best option. Homemade cleaning products will make your house smell fresh and keep it chemical free—without stretching your budget.

The recipes for homemade cleaners call for a list of basic ingredients that you probably already have on hand. If not, they can easily be purchased for cheaper in bulk. For example, baking soda, white vinegar, borax and liquid vegetable-based soap are needed to make the majority of these recipes. These supplies will last a long time, so instead of continually restocking these supplies and making several trips to the grocery store, purchase your most used products in bulk.

The most expensive of the ingredients you might need are essential oils. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis), ginger (Zingiber officinale) and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) will add wonderful scents to your cleaners; tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) will add antiseptic and antibacterial qualities to all of your homemade products. For other miscellaneous equipment, you may need spray bottles, sponges and a few labels to identify your cleaner. Some of these products, such as the spray bottles, can be reused and recycled.

Photo by astro twilight/courtesy Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dogbytes/

Many homemade recipes for natural cleaning products require a small amount of the more expensive ingredients. With that in mind, a 0.33-ounce bottle of essential oil should last you a while. Remember that essential oils are not required for all homemade natural cleaning product recipes. I made a bleach brightener and the only ingredient I had to purchase was hydrogen peroxide. The other ingredients I used were water and lemon juice (look for the results of my homemade cleaner in an upcoming blog).

In the end, you will end up saving money if you make your own cleaners—most of the ingredients are already under your kitchen sink and if not, they're cheap. Here is a brief cost comparison of the basic ingredients you will need to make homemade cleaners versus the cost of brand-name products.

Ingredients for Homemade Cleaners

• Baking soda: Arm and Hammer baking soda is $3.77-$4.00 for 4 pounds.
• Vinegar: Heinz Distilled White Vinegar is $2.19 for 32 ounces.
• Borax: 20 Mule-Team Borax is $4.79 for 76 ounces.
• Vegetable-based soap: Tea Tree Therapy Vegetable Based Soap is $2.31 for 3.5 ounce bars.
• Essential oils: $4.00-$10.00 for 0.33 ounces.

Common Brand-Name Products

• General purpose cleaner: Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner is $4.49 for 16 ounces.
• Glass cleaners: Windex Antibacterial Glass and Surface Cleaner is $5.99 for 32 ounces.
• Soap: Dial Antibacterial Liquid Soap is $17.58 for 1 gallon.
• Bleach: Clorox Laundry Detergent Bleach is $3.99 for 96 ounces.  

Have you ever channeled your inner environmentalist and made a homemade cleaner? If so, please share your experiences by leaving me a comment.

For more information on cleaning your home naturally, visit our blog series Naturally Clean.

Cleaning stains and build-up in the bathroom or in the kitchen can leave sponges looking like they’ve been through a war zone. Sometimes your best efforts don’t even pay off, as streaks appear after your best scrubbing efforts. Ditch the sponge and the harsh chemical cleaners for this natural, tough cleaner that is gentle on your hands. 

This recipe uses what’s is already in your kitchen cupboard. All it requires is everyday items such as liquid soap, lemons and baking soda.

Multipurpose Scrubbing Cleaner:

• 1 cup baking soda 
• 1/8 cup liquid kitchen soap
• Half a lemon
• 20 drops of lavender essential oil (optional)

1. Mix the baking soda and the soap together—it should create a thick paste. If your mixture is too powdery, add more soap; if it is too soapy add a few pinches of baking soda.

2. Add 20 drops of lavender essential oil to the mixture. You can substitute any essential oil for lavender. Rosemary and rose also work. If you add essential oil, make sure your mixture maintains the thick paste texture.

3. Once you’ve combined the ingredients, apply the mixture to half of a lemon and scrub away. The citrus smell of the lemon leaves surfaces smelling great, but it is the lemon peal and texture that acts as a sponge and cleans almost any surface.

4. After you have applied the multipurpose mixture, run a damp cloth over any leftover residue.

For more information on cleaning your home naturally, visit our blog series Naturally Clean.

At the Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability conference last year, Simran Sethi, one of the guest speakers, put chemical cleaning products in perspective for me. Sethi basically asked her audience this question: Would you feel comfortable leaving your child alone in a room with toxic household cleaners? Although I’m not a parent, the answer is clearly no. Sethi’s point was that this scenario is the same as using toxic products all around the house.

Since talking to Sethi, I’ve looked at household cleaners in a whole new light and I’ve started making my own as means to replace these toxic chemicals. This simple, herbal all-purpose cleaner is eco-friendly and only takes five minutes to make.  

All-Purpose Cleaner

• 2 tablespoons borax
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• 2 cups hot water
• 20 drops tea tree essential oil

1. Combine the borax and lemon juice with the water in a spray bottle. Cap and shake well to dissolve the mineral.

2. Add the tea tree oil and shake again to disperse the oil.

For more information on cleaning your home naturally, visit our blog series Naturally Clean.

Sarah Powell, an herbalist, medical anthropologist and proprietor of the natural bath & body business, Lilith’s Apothecary. Find her shop at www.lilithsapothecary.etsy.com and her blog at www.lilithsapothecary.wordpress.com for more natural body care tips and recipes. 

At the first mentions of swine flu, I was busily boosting immunity with the many herbs in our anti-viral, immune-boosting arsenal by way of homemade herbal syrups. I work in the field of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, believe it or not, and I’ve spent years at least tangentially involved in pandemic flu planning. However, few in the general public are thinking about herbal remedies when preparing for a biological event. Herbs might not be adequate to fight infections on the level of the especially virulent Spanish influenza that devastated the globe in the early 20th century, but I believe in bringing out all the available supports, whenever necessary. And let’s be honest, swine flu is clearly not the pandemic of those proportions. The fact is that regular influenza strains wipe out 36,000 people a year in the United States alone, on average. Truth be told, there are herbs that assist us in disease prevention, no matter what the foe, and these herbs can become part of your regular cold and flu first aid kit.

It is a good idea to have multiple herbal syrups at your disposal. Syrups are a great vehicle for delivering extra strong, perhaps unpleasant tasting herbal decoctions to those adverse to those medicinal flavors. Children, especially, tolerate herbal syrups much better than their derivative decoctions or tincture cousins, and will happily take a spoonful of Echinacea or Astragalus syrup without batting an eye. Even better, syrups prolong the shelf life of your precious immune boosting or anti-viral herbal decoctions by at least a year.  There is no doubt that there is a lot of sugar involved, but a spoonful of sugar does indeed help the medicine go down, and in this case, it’s probably worth it.

Herb Companion has provided previous resources on helpful herbs to fight colds and flus.

(Click here to read more about preventing and treating the common cold.)

Although medicinal mushrooms are probably not a good choice for herbal battle against strains of flu that could cause of cytokine storm in the body, as their immune-fighting effect is to help the body do just this. A boost in cytokine activity, in the specific case of these extra-virulent influenza  strains, is what creates a powerful immune reaction that could be to the detriment of the flu sufferer, and is cited as the reason why Spanish influenza resulted in so many deaths for young, healthy adults with strong immune systems. That said, commonly used preventative herbs such as astragalus (Astragalus membranaceous) seem an ideal choice. This Chinese herb is part of the famed  ‘Jade screen’ (Yupingfeng San)  formula, c. 1481, used for immune defense.  Though I have little personal experience with it, AHG herbalist Michael Tierra writes about osha (Ligusticum porteri), a Native American  herb apparently used by the native population with “noticeable benefit during the 1917-1918 Spanish flu pandemic that killed tens of millions of people. Those who took these native herbs only got a relatively mild case of the flu which was deadly to most others.” Herbs such as echinacea root, ginger root and thyme also provide great anti-viral action once those early signs and symptoms start to make themselves known.

Making an herbal syrup is relatively easy once you decide which herbs to use. James Green, author of The Herbal Medicine Maker’s Handbook: A Home Manual (2002, the Crossing Press), an invaluable resource for kitchen medicinals, instructs us to use a 2:1 simple ratio of sugar to strong herbal decoction, and this has resulted in excellent preservation and shelf life in my own syrup-making. It’s important to work in as clean an environment as possible, including using dry, sterilized bottles for syrup storage.

(You can incorporate herbal syrups into your cooking! Click here to learn more.)

Step 1: Measure your herbs 1 ounce by weight per liter of water. Simmer herbs in water for 15 to 30 minutes minimum and allow to steep a further 30 minutes or more for a strong decoction. I let the water continue to evaporate via a temperature just under simmering until the decoction is even more reduced and concentrated.

(Learn more about decoctions.)

Step 2: Strain and measure the decocted liquid. Using a 2:1 ratio of sugar to liquid, measure out the necessary quantity of sugar and stir into the liquid until it is dissolved.  White sugar, brown sugar, rice syrup or honey can be used. If you want a thicker syrup, allow the liquid to simmer further for another 20 to 30 minutes. If your sugar component is honey, simmering with destroy its enzymic activity, but with the current strain on honey bees, I would advocate against using honey right now. 

Step 3: If desired, add 6 to 8 tablespoons of brandy per pint of syrup. This will help preserve the syrup and also helps to act as a mild relaxant for painful coughs.

Step 4: Once the syrup is cool, essential oils such as peppermint, anise, cardamom, or ginger can also be added. Add 5 drops TOTAL per pint of syrup. Add one drop at a time, and each time, test the flavor, as essential oils are extremely potent and must be used with extreme moderation. Further information also exists about the use of oregano oil as a potent anti-viral and antibiotic remedy, a helpful addition to an already potent syrup. 

Step 5: Bottle the syrup in clean, dark glass bottles for storage. If made properly, syrups should keep just fine at room temperature. If you are concerned, store in the refrigerator to ensure preservation.

Have fun experimenting in your syrup production; try a variety of herbs with activity to assist with painful coughs, excess mucous production, and other uncomfortable symptoms to prepare you for colds and flus at any time of year. Simple elderberry, ginger, and echinacea syrups (Ecinacea Summer Tincture) are on their own, veritable powerhouses sure to get you through the worst!

After a long winter season, I’m ready to get rid of my thick body lotion for something lighter and more fragrant. While walking down the body care isle at my local natural foods store, I saw Pangea Organics hand and body lotions. After trying a tiny drop of the lotions I was sold.

With the simple desire of making things better, Pangea Organics produces organic beauty products. The Boulder, Colorado-based company says it selects only the highest quality ingredients for their product without compromising the planet. None of its products contain artificial colors or fragrances, parabens, GMOs, petrochemicals or other harmful components.

My favorite lotion is Pyrenees Lavender with Cardamom. The fragrant lavender soothes and alleviates tension while the cardamom acts as an antiseptic and cleanser. Some lotions leave an oily residue or don’t moisturize enough, but the Pyreneese Lavender with Cardamom moisturizes without that oily feeling. The hand and body lotion is perfect for spring and summer or moist climates as it is light lotion.

Have you tried the Pangea Organics line? Which one is your favorite? Let’s chat about it, drop me a comment or email me at snelson@ogdenpubs.com.

I wasn’t expecting to come home with a bundle of mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) when I left Blessed Thistle Farm in McLouth, Kansas. On Monday morning, Audrey Klopper, owner of Blessed Thistle Farm, led me around her bountiful garden and showed me all the amazing plants she harvests daily. As we walked through the garden, she picked mustard seed and arugula for both of us to taste and peppermint (Mentha piperita) for us to smell. We walked past some of her healing nervines, nettles (Urtica dioica) and hops (Humulus lupulus).

Photo by oceandestoiles/Courtesty Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_of_stars/

When it was time to leave, Audrey handed me a bundle of mugwort and told me to hang it above my bed. Mugwort, an herb that was once used as a charm used against evil spirits, treatment toward alleviating digestion and a preventative solution for tired feet, is also an herb that has been used to induce vivid dreams (The Art of Artemesias). I followed Audrey's instructions and tied the mugwart together and hung it on a painting above my bed to try and induce dreams.

(Learn more about tieing herbal bouquets.)

My dream wasn’t exactly vivid but I think it was because I was trying too hard to make the mugwort work. I dreamt that I was punching numbers into an excel spreadsheet over and over—but that’s probably because I’ve been doing a lot of that for school.

I’m interested to see if other people have tried this. If you have, I would love to hear about any experiences you’ve had with mugwort inducing vivid dreams. Please share by leaving a comment!

Theresa Loe is a freelance garden/culinary writer, book author and blogger who specializes in organic edible gardening and gardening with children. You can find her recipes and garden tips at www.gardenfreshliving.com.

National Herb Week was first established in 1991 by the International Herb Association. It is celebrated every year during the week prior to Mother’s Day. The purpose of National Herb Week is to bring attention to herbs, herbal uses and herb businesses. For this reason, many herb farms and businesses celebrate Herb Week with festivals and educational events during this week. Usually the celebrations will include tributes to the “Herb of the Year,” which for 2009 is bay (Laurus nobilis).

(Learn more about the 2009 Herb of the Year.)

Bay laurel is an evergreen, Mediterranean shrub with glossy, dark green leaves. In mild climates, such as Southern California, bay can grow into a substantial tree of 20 feet or more. But in most areas, it is a slow grower and rarely reaches over four to five feet. It is an excellent container plant and is commonly grown as a topiary.

Although this perennial can survive frost in many areas, the leaves can become damaged. In very cold climates, it is best grown in a container and brought indoors for the winter. It does very well indoors if it receives strong light and an occasional misting of the leaves. When grown outside, bay prefers full sun.

Bay leaves can be harvested anytime throughout the year. When you prune or shape your plant, save and dry the leaves for later use. 

(Try cooking bay in a Rice Pudding dish.)

Bay is sometimes called “bay laurel” or “sweet bay”, but check the botanical name when purchasing your plant to be sure your are getting Laurus nobilis. Another plant called bay laurel is actually California bay (Umbellularia californica). Although it is sometimes erroneously sold as a culinary herb, California bay contains toxic oils and should never be eaten.