No matter how busy life gets, it's essential to make time for self care, and supporting our nervous systems is particularly important. Herbal nervines and adaptogens can be invaluable allies for coping with the normal day-to-day aggravations of life: work pressures, family responsibilities, financial worries, seasonal mood slumps, over-reliance on caffeine, and so on. Whether your nervous tension results in intermittent minor aches, occasional melancholy, or the odd sleepless night, herbs that can help us find relaxation and calm to enjoy normal and healthful cycles of activity and rest.

Over the last decade, my kitchen has hosted a wide variety of cultures and home fermentation projects. Pickles, sauerkraut, kimchi, milk-and-water kefir, and fermented garlic paste have all lived (and thrived!) atop my counters. However, only one culture has found a permanent residence: kombucha. If you aren’t familiar with kombucha, it is a fermented tea beverage that has exploded in popularity over the last few years. Kombucha can now be easily found at nearly every co-op or grocery store, but if you drink as much as I do, store-bought bottles can get pricey fast. Fortunately, it’s easy, inexpensive, and fun to make at home! Plus, you can flavor your kombucha and adjust its acidity or sourness to your liking.  

Natural wax candles are delightful accessories and tools for creating radiant spaces, especially as fall and winter bring chilly darkness to our days. These warm, flickering lights add natural ambiance and a calm, cozy feeling to any room. And while they serve a lovely mood-setting purpose in their own right, they can also be used to heat essential oils in a diffuser to fill a room with your favorite grounding fragrance, creating the perfect space for relaxing self care rituals.

Each October, I get to set up the Mountain Rose Herbs booth at the wonderful Mount Pisgah Arboretum Mushroom Festival here in Eugene, Oregon. I absolutely love this event! It typically brings out 3,000 mycophiles eager to learn about wild mushrooms and peruse the many species on display. Aiming to be festive with fungus, I’ll usually brew up a large batch of reishi chai. Chai is one of my all-time favorite teas, and adding reishi mushroom slices (Ganoderma lucidum) gives it the added perk of supporting immune health*.

My recent discovery of kokum butter set me ablaze in the kitchen! Happily experimenting with various ways to use it, I’ve concluded that it is perfect for dry skin.

If you’ve never used kokum butter, it’s similar in firmness to cocoa butter, but a little flakier. Many consider it a good substitute for cocoa butter because of its uniform triglyceride composition. It can be used to thicken many homemade cosmetics including body butters, creams, lotions, and lip balms.

Herbal infusions have been used for thousands of years. Many of us create them regularly when we brew tea (which is simply an infusion of tea leaves). However, while there's a lot to love about this classic teatime preparation, it's just one of the countless options you can experiment with when crafting your own sippable herbal preparations.

In days long ago, herbal potions were full of mystery and intrigue! In medieval France, many abbeys had their own unique recipes for distilled tonics. These blends were formulated with various herbs and spices and were a closely guarded secret within the abbey.

Recently, my husband and I were taking a training class with our puppy, Gracie Cakes. The dog trainer suggested that we class attendees head to the grocery store and buy jars of baby food as training treats for the dogs — apparently, dogs love the common pureed ingredients used in commercial baby foods. I say this to explain how I found myself standing in a baby food aisle for the very first time in my life. I realized, as I stood there not knowing where to even begin, that I had raised three babies to healthy adulthood and, until Gracie Cakes the terrier, had done so without ever twisting the lid from a commercial baby food jar.

Essential oils seem to be everywhere these days! Little known in the mainstream just a decade or two ago, these potent oils are now being featured by celebrities, in magazines, and even in big box stores. Essential oils can be a wonderful way to support health and well-being. However, there is quite a bit of conflicting information out there about how to use them. As highly concentrated plant-based aromatics, it is important to use essential oils safely.