Written by Megan Shinn
Excerpted with permission of Garden Gate magazine
Imagine taking a deep breath in a gorgeous herb garden on a sunny day. Now imagine that you could bottle that fresh air and somehow use it to scent and sanitize your home. It is possible! Just ask Stephanie Rose.
Stephanie uses all-natural, handmade cleaning agents at her home in British Columbia, Canada. Now a master gardener, permaculture designer and trained herbalist, Stephanie began her garden journey after a sudden illness left her bedridden in 2006.
“I used gardening as rehabilitation,” she recalls, explaining that tending plants in her Vancouver yard helped her strengthen her body and her mind after many months of exhaustion. Gardening also led her to learn ways to avoid harsh chemicals that might trigger or exacerbate her health troubles.
Store-bought housekeeping and self-care products often contain an endless list of unfamiliar — and unpronounceable — chemicals, she points out. “I researched plants instead of researching those thousands of product ingredients. My path has been falling in love with plants and then finding their healing powers.”
A Natural Clean
What kinds of things find their way into Stephanie’s cleaning sprays, laundry items and bathroom refreshers? Recipes typically start with ingredients already waiting in the cupboard, like distilled white vinegar, whose acidity cuts grease; alcohol, which can tackle germs; and baking soda, a natural abrasive. Whether a mixture starts with vinegar or alcohol often depends on the surface it’s meant to clean.
“Vinegar shouldn’t be used on shiny or smooth surfaces, like granite and window glass,” Stephanie says, explaining that it leaves them with streaks. Alcohol-based cleaners are much more compatible with those materials, but vinegar can be used with great results on wood.
The fun part comes when she adds herbal elements, sometimes direct from plants and other times as an essential oil. But these items, too, serve specific purposes beyond smelling nice. For instance, her Orange and Sage All-Purpose Cleaner (recipe, below), “acts as an aromatic to bring down the vinegar scent, but it’s also antibacterial. The ancient Greeks used it to preserve meat.”
Lavender is an even better example, since it has become such a popular ingredient in mainstream household products. “Laundry-detergent manufacturers are definitely onto it, but they’re usually using artificial fragrance,” she says. In so doing, these items lack real lavender’s key properties: “It’s an amazing antiseptic, antimicrobial and antifungal.”
Preserving the Harvest
Whatever herbs you grow, it’s helpful to know a few ways to preserve them for later use. To dry them, simply tie handfuls of cut stems together and hang them upside down in a warm, dry, shaded place, such as an attic, garage or a sheltered spot outside. Once they’re completely dry, which may be in as little as a week depending on humidity, strip the leaves and put them in an airtight container. “Dried herbs keep for about a year when stored in this way,” Stephanie says.
For a faster drying method, she recommends using a food dehydrator, not the oven, which she feels is too harsh for delicate herbs even on its lowest heat.
Truth be told, some of Stephanie’s house-cleaning recipes sound almost appetizing. And in fact, she points to vinegar as another way to preserve herbs — or at least their flavor. Just stuff a mason jar with fresh herbs and fill it with white vinegar. Let it sit for two weeks, then strain the liquid, discarding the herbs. “You are left with a deeply flavorful herbal vinegar that you can use to make amazing salad dressings.”
Orange & Sage All-Purpose Cleaner
Anytime Stephanie eats an orange, she pops its rind into a jar of vinegar for
continual concocting.
This recipe combines the powerful cleaning ability of vinegar with the delicious aroma of orange rinds and fresh garden sage. The orange peels also “contain citric acid, which helps the acidic vinegar dissolve greases and other grime,” Stephanie adds.
Materials
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Peels of 4 to 5 large oranges
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Handful of fresh sage leaves
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6 cups distilled white vinegar (5% acidity)
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Two 67-ounce lidded mason jars
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Strainer
Steps
Fill one mason jar with orange peels and sage. Top with white vinegar, seal the lid, and store in a cool, dark place for one week. Then strain the liquid into the second mason jar. This is your cleaning concentrate, which can now be diluted to different strengths for different jobs. The concentrate should be used within six weeks, so Stephanie recommends sticking with small batches. Store unused portions in a cool, dark place.
How to use it
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To cut grease and remove soap scum, combine 1 part concentrate with 1 part water in a spray bottle, shake, spray and wipe.
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To clean countertops, use 1 part concentrate and 3 parts water.
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For mopping floors (not hardwood), add 1/2 cup of the concentrate to 3 gallons of warm water.
Stephanie Rose is a master gardener & creator of GardenTherapy.ca.
