You may already be doing a few...

You do not have to be a "total hippie" to benefit from herbs, you just need to bring them into your life.

Please consider making one of the suggested changes and trying it out for one to two months. You may want to keep a journal, start with how you are feeling now and see what changes may arise during your herbal experiment.

Your herbal future awaits

1. Start an herb garden

This can be a simple kitchen culinary herb garden where you grow one or more of your favorite herbs (basil, thyme, parsley), or a few fun pots on the back patio, or a full-blown French herb garden in your yard. Whichever size and style works for you is the way to go. This will allow you to have fresh herbs on hand whenever you want them, it will encourage you to start experimenting more with your culinary flavor profile, it can help you improve your digestion as many culinary herbs are great for the GI tract, and gardening (on any scale) can help boost your mental health. Plus, herb gardens are just plain delightful to look at and smell.

2. Make herbal salts

Herbal salts can be used in your cooking as well as for relaxing baths and soaks. Herbal salts are rather easy to make, can save you quite a bit of money in the long run, and they make great gifts. You will want to use any mineral rich salt that you like, but please do not use standard table salt as it is missing many important minerals that the other salts have to offer. Sea salt, Himalayan salt, Dead Sea salt and Hawaiian black lava salt are all examples of available salts that would work great. As for the herbs, you will want to use the best quality, freshest dried herbs that you are able to use (consider drying your own from your herb garden). If you are able to get the herbs in powdered form, or powder them yourself, that is the most ideal way so that they do not clog the saltshaker, or your bathtub drain. There are lots of recipe ideas out there to try out, or you can just wing it and have fun experimenting in the kitchen. The basic ration is 50:50 herb to salt, but you are free to adjust that ratio as you please. Some herbs to consider for culinary uses would be mint, cilantro, basil, dill, rosemary, thyme, lavender, sage, oregano or parsley. You can use your herbal culinary salts on salads, soups, as a meat rub and on your morning eggs, really use your herbal salt anywhere you would have used salt. If you want to make an herbal salt for soaking then you might want to consider calendula, rose hips, lavender, spearmint, rosemary, juniper berries, sage, rose petals or chamomile. You can use 1-2 Tbsp of your salt blend to create a delightful foot soak or up to 1 cup of herbal salt in the bathtub for an exquisite full body soak. Feel free to make your herbal salt foot soak a nightly routine.

3. Make cordials

Do you happen to remember the scene from Anne of Green Gables where the girls drank a bit too much of Marilla's raspberry cordial? If you were like me, you got to thinking to yourself, I cannot wait to grow up and try some raspberry cordial myself, but of course, in moderation. Now is that time, have yourself some raspberry cordial, or cherry, or spiced plum. You can ferment your own cordial, but let's get started the easy way, by infusing alcohol with fruit and herbs.

The basic idea is that you put your fruits and herbs into a clean jar, fill the rest of the way with the alcohol that you want to use, put a lid on it and set it aside in a dark temperature-controlled place for a month. You can use fresh or dried fruits and herbs. If you use fresh herbs, you can fill your jar up to 3/4 full, but if you are using dried then you don't want to fill the jar more than halfway full. Occasionally check on your concoction to be sure that there is still at least two inches of alcohol above the fruit and herbs, if needed, add more alcohol. After a month (or more) you will decant the infused alcohol into a measuring cup. You can eat the fruit that you strained out, use it for a creative recipe, or add it to your compost pile. At this point you have made a tincture, and you can stop here if you would like to, but I would suggest adding a sweetener to finish making your tasty cordial. You can use the sweetener of your choice, and the amount of your choice, but the general suggestion is 1/2-part sweetener to 1-part infused alcohol. Once you have mixed your sweetener with your alcohol, put it into the container of choice, label it and you are ready for a party.

Fruits to consider for your cordial making would be blackberries, raspberries, cherries, apples, peaches, plums or pomegranates. Herbs to consider would be cinnamon, orange peel, allspice, nutmeg, ginger, fennel seeds, peppermint, lavender, rose petals, chamomile, ginger, juniper berries, pumpkin pie spices or chai spices. The alcohol you use can be vodka, brandy, rum or even wine. One idea you might like to try: Holiday cordial

• 1 cup pomegranate seeds

• 1 cup sliced pear

• 1 orange of any variety sliced up thinly with peel left on

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 4 cloves

• 1/4 tsp of ginger

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 3 cups of brandy or rum (be sure to cover fruit and herbs by at least 2 inches)

• after 1 month infusion time, decant and add 1 cup of molasses

4. Make infused honey

Raw unfiltered honey already has many wonderful benefits such as helping soothe sore throats, calm coughs and promote healing of wounds and burns. Infused honeys are simple, tasty, fun and effective. This is a fun area to start dabbling in home herbal remedies, but be aware, it is possible to make a sticky mess. Local, raw honey will offer the most benefits.

I have already written a full blog gushing on the beauties of infused honeys, please pop over and read it when you get a chance. Herb infused honey is an easy and tasty way to add herbs into your life. Just like with the herbal salt, you can use herbal honey anywhere and everywhere that you would use regular honey. If you are feeling adventurous and bold, I would highly suggest trying honey garlic, it is shockingly delightful with cheese and crackers.

Garlic Honey – peel and cut enough garlic to fill a sterilized jar 1/3 - ½ full, let the garlic sit for about 10 minutes, cover in honey, stir, cover and label jar. Infused honey will be ready in a couple of days. Best to use within three months. Super tasty with a cheese and cracker tray.

5. Make herbal vinegars

Vinegar is not for everyone, but if you are one that has embraced the culinary boldness of vinegar, you are in for a treat here. Herbal vinegars are impressively versatile, anywhere you would use vinegar you can use infused vinegars; salad dressing, marinades, dipping sauce as well as homemade cleaning products, bathwater additive, hair rinse, fire cider and even topical use to cool burns. I have also written a full blog on herbal infused vinegars that you may want to check out as I have included more recipes over there. The great part about the versatility of infused vinegars is that you have lots of opportunities to save money, reduce the use of harmful chemicals and consume more herbs. I would recommend using your favorite raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar for all infusions except for cleaning products, then I would use distilled white vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is a fermented food product that may improve gut health, it also is thought to help with blood sugar regulation, weight loss, healthy cholesterol balance, has trace amounts of minerals, and can help control your appetite.

Herbal Vinegar Cleaning Sprays

½ cup citrus peels

½ cup fresh pine or fir needles

White vinegar to fill jar

-or-

½ cup sage

½ cup thyme

White vinegar to fill jar

Cover with a plastic lid and allow to infuse for at least two weeks. Decant off solids and use the infused vinegar for cleaning. You may wish to mix it 50:50 with distilled water, you can also add up to a tablespoon of a castile soap and essential oils for boosting the cleaning potential and improve the smell (up to 2% by volume)

Muscle Rub Vinegar

Small mason jar with a plastic lid

Fill halfway with rosemary and cleavers (that weed in your yard that you might know as catchweed or velcro plant or sticky willy)

Fill remaining space with whichever vinegar you have on hand, cover and set aside to infuse for 2-4 weeks

After straining, you might consider adding a few drops (up to 1% by volume) of an essential oil, such as frankincense, clove or lavender. Use this rub on sore muscles just the same as a sore muscle liniment.

6. Make an herbal infused oil

Herbal infused oils are just grand. You can use them straight as a muscle or moisturizer, or you can use the oil as a base for making salves, balms or even chapstick. Making salves is quite addicting, but to keep things simple, lets focus on making infused oils and using them as part of a daily self-care relaxation routine. There are quite a variety of ways to make herbal infused oils, but I will teach you one of the easiest ways to get you started. For this method, it is best to use dried herbs, and if you are able to, grind the herbs down to small pieces to increase their surface area. Not all herbs will have their constituents extracted by oil, so to start, it is best to pick a fragrant herb that you like and that is available to you, such as lavender, rose petals, mint, rosemary, sage, cinnamon, ginger, chamomile, calendula, fennel, eucalyptus or thyme. Probably the best infused oil to start with is calendula. You can use whichever oil you would like, such as olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, sunflower oil, jojoba oil or a mix of oils. Get a sterilized jar, preferably a wide mouth mason jar, a smaller one will be fine since this is an experiment to see if you like herbal oils. Fill your jar 1/4 to 1/2 full with your dried herb then cover the herb with your selected oil, be sure all herb is submerged by at least 2 inches. Put your jar in a temperature and light controlled location where you can give it a gentle shake each time you walk by. Let it infuse for about a month, then decant and enjoy your homemade luxurious herbal oil - nightly foot rubs into happy dream land.

7. Experiment with new tea blends

I love herbal teas, especially in the cold months; there's something very wonderful about sitting down with a warm cup of tea after a long day and allowing yourself to unwind. Let's be real, there are tons and tons of herbal tea options already out there, so if you do not feel called to create your own blends, it's all good, because the store will have plenty to choose from. You don't even need to go crazy and get the most obscure sounding tea from halfway across the world, in fact, ignore those for now. Pick one that you believe you will enjoy, like chamomile or a mint, or a simple blend like lavender chamomile. Feel free to experiment wildly with your teas, maybe put two tea bags into your mug, or even two different flavors of tea bags together in your mug, or play with steeping time or the water temperature, maybe try an overnight cold infusion. Let this experiment be fun, and when you find the right tea and steep technique, see if you can determine any distinct changes that come about from the tea, like you are able to handle stressful situations better, or you are able to open up about your feelings more freely, or you are sleeping more soundly. Once you have determined what your tea can do for you, please share your new information with others and encourage them to start their own experiment; share the joy.

Bonus: This one may be the hardest one for some people, but I believe it is the most rewarding. If you use harmful chemicals such as pesticides and herbicides on your lawn and garden, I encourage you to stop and embrace an organic approach. Many of the weeds that people work so hard to get rid of are rich, free medicinal gifts. Dandelion, self-heal, purslane, plantain, chickweed, purple dead nettle, cat's ear, henbit, yarrow, feverfew, chicory, yard daisies, lamb's quarters, common mallow, red clover and mullein are just a few of the common weeds that many people have in their yards that offer amazing healing gifts if we just stop and look and appreciate them. Please be sure to only use "weeds" that you are sure of their identification and are sure that have not been treated with chemicals. If you are sure of what you have, then say a "thank you" and be sure to use the herb with reverence and respect.