Natural Cleaning with Vinegar

If I could only use one item to clean my home with, it would be vinegar. A natural disinfectant that only costs pennies, vinegar deals with dirt, smells, stains, grease, and mold—especially in the shower. I’ve cleaned my whole house with just a spray bottle of vinegar and a little liquid soap. To make it smell really clean and good, add a few drops of calming lavender oil (also a natural disinfectant), easily found at a reasonable cost at your local health food stores. Just remember, you’re not making gallons, you’re making a small bottle. Because they contain no preservatives, DIY cleaning mixes don’t last very long, so use regularly for a clean green home and then fill your spray bottle anew!

Old Thyme Tincture: Medicinal Herbal Vinegar

Every kitchen garden should be strewn with thyme plantings, fragrantly growing amongst the flagstones in the path as well as in the rows of herbs, filling the air with their magnificent scent and elegant beauty. You will need to keep a plentitude growing and several bunches drying in a dark corner of your panty at all times, as this plant makes a mighty fine tincture with many medicinal uses. I also suggest you start gathering together some supplies: clean muslin or cheesecloth, several colored glass bottles, and an assortment of canning jars with lids for storing your handiwork. For this tincture, take one of the larger jars and the following ingredients:

• 1¼ cup dried thyme leaves
• 2 cups apple cider vinegar

Put the dried thyme in the jar and carefully pour the vinegar inside. Stir well and seal. Place on a dark shelf and make sure to shake it every day. At the end of the one month, strain through muslin. Compost the thyme residue in your garden and store the tincture in a pretty glass jar.

Having this herbal helper around will come in handy for mouthwashes, hair rinses, and ritual baths, and you can even rub it on achy joints and sore muscles. For a cup of thyme tea, add one teaspoon of the tincture to a cup of hot water, then add a teaspoon of honey, stir, and enjoy.

Garden Alchemy: Perfect Plants for DIY Vinegars

The leaves and stalks of the following plants are very good for making herbal vinegars: apple mint, basil, catnip, garlic, mustard, orange mint, peppermint, rosemary, spearmint, thyme, and yarrow.

Dill and fennel seeds work very well, as do lemon and orange peels.

The flowers of bee balm, chives, goldenrod, lavender, and yarrow make for delicate herbed vinegars.

Roots also infuse nicely into herbal vinegars—the best are dandelion, chicory, ginger, garlic, mugwort, and burdock.