Over my years of DIY tinkering I’ve created over a hundred body care, culinary, and green cleaning recipes. Some I love seasonally, others come and go for one reason or another, and some shining stars remain a constant in my everyday life. One member of this VIP list is a “Four Thieves®” multi-surface spray. It’s easy to make, and its versality means that it earns its keep in my natural cleaning supply closet. It also smells fresh and invigorating and cuts grease with the likes of commercially available soaps and sprays.

If you’re like me, you aim to not waste any of your herbal ingredients—you understand that hard-working pollinators and farmers put a lot of love and care into getting the finest organic botanicals into your cupboard. This is why I began exploring ways to reuse my herbs after making herbal preparations. Through years of making tea, infused oils, tinctures, vinegars, and honeys, I’ve tinkered up some fun ways to upcycle the remaining plant material, often called the “marc,” into other fine uses and crafts.

I am a fan of Lynn Rosseto Kasper’s public radio cooking show The Splendid Table. I was particularly intrigued with a 2020 episode in which she talked about a recipe for butternut squash roasted with a cider reduction syrup that she made by simply reducing sweet apple cider from four parts down to one part. I thought—as I am wont to do—“What if I put herbs in that delicious syrup?”

We’re getting to the time of year when some species of bees, wasps, and hornets get more aggressive, so we’re more likely to get stung. In late summer and fall, these stinging insects start to prepare for winter at the same time that their natural food sources are depleted. They’re hungry and their instinct to protect their hive and, particularly, their queen becomes more intense. I sometimes get “hangry” too, so at some level I get it, but being on the receiving end of a yellow jacket’s misplaced fury is a big drag. Fortunately—so long as you are not allergic to bees and wasps—there are a number of very effective natural and herbal remedies if you’ve been stung.

Giving children a good herbal foundation will stay with them for their lifetime. Knowledge is power, and when we are young, we are especially open and eager to learn new things about the natural world. In the same way that learning another language is especially helpful in earlier development stages, so is sharing the language of plants. No matter what career and lifestyle children grow into, exploring plants as a child will give them a solid foundation of wisdom that will help them in their day-to-day lives. They will have the ability to take control of their own health and teach others to do the same. 

Distilled from the twigs and bark of the witch hazel tree, high quality, organic witch hazel extract is a lovely, time-tested ingredient in DIY and natural deodorant sprays. Witch hazel lowers the skin’s pH, so odor-causing bacteria cannot thrive. It is gentle enough to be used alone, or can be combined with herbs and essential oils. It also does double-duty as a toner, which is why you see it show up so often in the finest facial toner recipes. These Mountain Rose Herbs deodorant spray recipes bring together the superpowers of witch hazel with balanced blends of aromatic essential oils—it’s no wonder they have been favorite go-to recipes for more than a decade! And, once you have the hang of these easy homemade sprays, you can customize the recipe to create a perfectly blended scent for yourself or your loved ones.

Whether you have acreage for a big herb garden or, like me, you’re trying to get as many herbs as you can in your small space—using patio pots, and windowsills, and waging war on every spot of lawn grass that you can eradicate—preserving our mid-summer herbal harvest is a deeply satisfying way to carry the magic of life-giving summer into the cold winter months. Drying our own herbs is remarkably simple and doesn’t require expensive special equipment—just some rubber bands and a piece of screen or a drying basket. If you’re ready to harvest your own herbs, here are a few pointers on drying and storing your bounty.

My family always has grand goals of getting out to the mountains once a month for a couple nights of tent camping from May through October. Camping in the shoulder months often means chilly temperatures and rain, which we’ve gotten good at dealing with. Mosquito season, however, can be a little more daunting. A few summers ago, we were camping at a Southern Oregon lake with friends who had school-age children. The mosquitos were SO vicious, particularly for the kiddos, and I spent the whole time kicking myself for not having made a batch of herbal mosquito repellent beforehand. Our friends had some over-the-counter natural spray, but it was passing-useless and none of us wanted to douse the children in a toxic DEET-based repellent. I vowed never to be caught by surprise again. Now this natural spray is a must-have for camping and any other activity that puts us close to water and mosquitos.

Our skin is literally our first line of defense, not only against the outdoor elements, but also things we don’t often think about like the detergents we use in our laundry, the chemicals in swimming pools and hot tubs, and the daily ravages of air pollution. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the air in our homes and other buildings “can be more seriously polluted than the outdoor air in even the largest and most industrialized cities.” Air pollutants hurt the skin in a variety of ways; they can activate cell metabolism and inflammatory processes, they can induce oxidative stress that causes free-radical damage and breaks down healthy collagen, etc., all of which ultimately throws off the balance of the skin’s natural microbiome. When that microbiome gets out of whack, some people experience sensitive acne, rashes, hives, and redness. Others struggle with dry, itchy skin and an uneven complexion. All day every day, our skin acts as a shield between us and the world. That’s why it’s important to give it all the support we can.

Here at Mountain Rose Herbs, we want to minimize our carbon footprint both as a company and as a collective community of individuals. One way we do this is through our Alternative Commute Program. For years, we have been encouraging our team members to stay healthy and reduce carbon emissions by not traveling to work in single-occupancy vehicles. This year, to further incentivize and increase participation, we improved the payout structure of the program.