How to Make Apple Spiced Liqueur
It is November. A cold chill has settled, blanketing the days with lower temperatures. It is time for cozy fires, warm food, and spiced drinks. This homemade apple spiced liqueur recipe gives your taste buds a welcome dose of sweet and spice, with a little bit of heat. The sweet taste of apples with cinnamon…
Pumpkin Spice Wellness Benefits You Should Know About
It’s officially fall in North America. Many things hearken this wonderful transitional season: cozy sweaters, big scarves, falling leaves, scary movies, and treasured final harvests from vegetable gardens. Few things are more emblematic to the season, however than pumpkin spice. It’s a flavor that many find entirely comforting. Feelings associated with the blend of spices…
3 Tips on Managing Vata Dosha During Autumn
Ayurveda teaches that we each have an inherent prakruti, which is our natural, unchanging nature. Our prakruti is our unique balance of vata, pitta, and kapha doshas and is unaffected by phase of life, seasons, or any other external factors. If you’re interested in finding out what your dosha is, read our article, Introduction To…
5 Herbs To Help You Transition Seasons From Summer To Fall
Although the days still feel long and hot, the crisp air of fall is right around the corner. There is a tendency for many of us to say that fall simply “snuck up” on us! Since weather patterns can be somewhat unpredictable at times, it can be helpful to utilize herbs that ease the transition…
3 Tips For Foraging Goldenrod This Year
As we move into fall, the colors of the landscape begin to change from the brilliant reds, purples, lavenders, and pinks of summer to the deeper colors of autumn—yellows, golds, oranges, deep reds, and browns. As these seasonal changes in nature relate to our own rhythms, I was taught to eat and make herbal preparations…
Homemade Pumpkin Playdough With Sweet Spices
A big warm batch of freshly homemade spiced pumpkin playdough is perfect for playtime on an autumn day. The warmth of the playdough combined with sweet spices like cinnamon and cardamom creates a lovely aromatic experience. Plus this recipe offers color from herbs and spices, no food coloring here! Be sure to provide cinnamon sticks,…
Autumn Wildharvesting Guide: Herbal Roots
Fall is the best time to harvest the roots, some berries, flowers, and cold weather herbs that we miss once the heat of summer comes in. This article will act as your fall wildharvesting guide, featuring herbal roots that are available during the season. Get the full Autumn Wildharvesting Guide, featuring fruits, berries, flowers, herbs, seeds, and…
Connecting With The Season of Roots
The herbs in our gardens and the wild places around us live a year that is marked by the ritual of necessity. Each season has unique blessings and challenges for our plant allies, and learning these rhythms gives us a deeper insight into the natural world and our own health. Spring is marked with new…
DIY Harvest Time Apple Recipes
Each autumn I look forward to crisp days filled with riotously colored leaves and the richness of harvest time, especially the coming of apple season. Apples have always been a favorite fruit in our house. And as a family, we love to get cooking in the kitchen and enjoy the bounty of the season with…
7 DIY Herbal Skin Care Recipes for Fall & Winter
As seasons change, so does the way we care for and nourish ourselves, as well as what we put in and on our bodies. Spring and summer bring fresh, cooling foods, while autumn and winter introduce heavy, nutrient-dense foods that warm and fill the body and spirit. Spring is often a time of rebirth, activity,…
Giving Thanks for the Fall Harvest
The time has come again. Fall is right around the corner and it is time to start collecting and harvesting what Mother Earth has given to us. She has been very good to us this year, here in Michigan, with all the good heavy rainfall that we had at the beginning of spring which has…
Health Benefits of Popular Autumn Spices
Soon the air will turn crisp and the leaves will begin to change colors. And along with these wonders of fall come the smells of apple and pumpkins as well as cinnamon, nutmeg, sage, and other popular autumn spices. In addition to the fact that these spices are delicious and autumnal, they also boast some…
Prepare for Fall with an Herbal Transition Kit
Late August is a time of transition, as summer is drawing to a close and a new school year begins. We know that many herbs are important allies during transitions, easing the stress and helping us settle into new routines. Creating an Herbal Transition Kit With that in mind, we can assemble an herbal transition…
Homemade Pumpkin Soup Recipe
This weekend, the students and staff cozied up at the Herbal Cottage with tea and soup as we talked through the nervous system, incense, flower essences, and so much more. Everyone enjoyed the soup so much that we thought we’d share Marlene’s very own Pumpkin Soup Recipe with you here, a delicious concoction that tastes…