Natural Foot Care

This is an article I wrote recently for the my health food store's website.  It is not exactly "kitchen", but some of the ingredients are kept in the kitchen and I wanted to share the information as it relates to natural, homemade living.  I hope some of you find it helpful, skin is our largest organ and what we place on it is absorbed into our bodies, so the skin products we choose to use really do matter.  Here is the article:


Poet Khalil Gibran said "Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the wind longs to play with your hair".  This well describes our feet in summer, we walk around our yards with bare feet, we swim and place our bare feet on hot pavement at the pool or sand and gravel at the lake.  Our feet take a lot of abuse, they support us all day and yet we rarely give them a second thought.  They can become too warm, dry, and even itchy.  People with diabetes in particular need to take good care of their feet, but we should all show our feet a little appreciation.  Athletes foot can become a problem with summer travel, hotel rooms, and swimming pools.  Soaking feet in warm water with antiseptic essential oils, such as tea tree oil or clove, will kill bacteria and deeply cleanse the feet.  Essential oils are highly concentrated oils extracted from the root, flower, fruit, leaf or wood of plants from around the world.  Essential oils can be used to nourish your skin, some have antifungal or antibacterial properties as noted below.  Quality is very important to getting the most benefit from the oils, be sure you use only 100% pure essential oils.

Antifungal Foot Soak
10 drops tea tree oil or clove essential oil (antifungal, antibacterial)
About 1 gallon warm water

Combine oil and enough warm water to soak your feet.  Soak.

For a refreshing foot scrub try adding your favorite essential oil to slightly abrasive and odor removing baking soda.  Peppermint is especially cooling and refreshing for your feet, with the added benefit of being antifungal.  If you want the scrub to be a little more abrasive add salt to the mixture, careful if you have any cuts on your feet, salt is antibacterial, but will sting.

Foot Scrub
1/2 cup baking soda
10 to 15 drops of your favorite essential oil
1/2 cup sea salt (optional)

Mix the baking soda and essential oil.  Then stir in the salt, if using.  Store in a tightly closed glass container, such as a canning jar.

Place the jar of foot scrub powder in your natural medicine cabinet.  It will keep indefinitely.

This is a refreshing rub for burning, itching feet.  Stored in the refrigerator it will keep well and be soothing. Scoop a small amount of the mixture out of the container and warm slightly in your hand to soften enough to rub into your feet.  The coconut oil helps to cover the strong odor of the tea tree oil, while it softens and soothes your feet.

Antifungal Foot Cream
2 tablespoons virgin coconut oil
15 to 20 drops antibacterial and antifungal essential oils such as clove or tea tree oil

Melt the coconut oil in a small pot over a low temperature, do not simmer or boil.  Once the oil has melted, pour it into a glass container and stir in drops of essential oil.  Cool and use.  The coconut oil will thicken as it cools.  Store in a tightly closed container in the refrigerator.  Use a butter knife to break off a small piece to rub on your feet, it will warm and melt on your skin and can then be rubbed in.

Sense of Home Kitchen / Homemade Living / Healthy Living

Garden Update

Sense of Home Kitchen

The garden has really taken off with this heat wave we are experiencing.  Today, despite the 90 degree temperature I was out driving bamboo stakes into the the soil to support the tomatoes.  Fortunately it rained an inch and a half early Friday morning so the soil was moist and easy to push the supports into.  I really like these bamboo stakes I bought last year, they are 5 feet tall and sturdy enough to carry the weight of a tomato plant loaded with fruit.  I saved a couple of pair of tights that had holes in them and an old sheet to use as ties, (the tights work really slick).

You can see the bamboo supports a little better in this photo, just ignore the hankies, socks and other assorted pieces of laundry hanging on the line, I was up at 5am this morning to start the first load of laundry, I wanted all three loads on the line before I had to leave the house.

I am really looking forward to trying the first of our grapes this year.  The cherries are delicious and I am headed out tonight after it cools a bit to pick a bowl of cherries.  I can't decide if I want to preserve them or just eat them fresh, it is such a treat to have fresh picked cherries.

The cucumbers are making their escape from the wire confines of the garden.  For dinner last night I made us each a salad, using the lettuce and spinach I picked last week and two cucumbers from this vine.  Meals have been simple lately, both out of necessity and because we are eating produce straight from the garden.

The raspberries, though late this year, are very sweet and juicy.  Only a few have ripened so far, but the bushes are loaded with berries so I will have plenty to freeze for winter.

I love lemon balm, it's light lemon flavor is terrific in tea or even just to pick a leaf and enjoy.  It has many health benefits, which I wrote about here.

My pistou basil is beginning to flower.  This basil plant is compact and perfect for my small hanging pot.  It has a mild basil flavor and is very good added to cooked dishes or salads.  As the season wraps up I will pick and dry the leaves for winter use, or perhaps I will replant in a pot and bring into the house for fresh basil year round.

Relying On Our Kitchen Garden

Sense of Home Kitchen

This has not been a particularly good year for the garden, June was a very cool and cloudy month for us and the seeds I planted at the end of May were very slow to grow.  In fact, the lettuce and spinach were barely out of the soil at the end of June, it wasn't until the heat came in July that they grew enough to pick for a salad and then the spinach bolted and went to seed.  I will plant lettuce and spinach again at the end of summer.  The tomatoes really took off when the July heat arrived and we will soon be eating tomatoes from our garden.  I have planted 24 tomato plants, that includes cherry, plum, and a variety of heirlooms.  I hope to can as many tomatoes as I did last year, about 36 to 40 quarts, as that supplied all the tomato sauce and whole tomatoes that we needed for the year, plus several jars of salsa and tomato soup.  The potatoes and beans are growing well, the peas are slow to produce, they should have produced and be starting to die already, but I hope to get enough for summer eating.

Canning is a little way off yet, though I have a tree full of small cherries that I will be turning into jelly before too long and it seems that once canning starts it is full-steam ahead for a good month or two.  I am hopeful that there will be a good supply of apples this year to provide us with juice for the winter and lots of good eating.  The strawberries have produced well, we have frozen several quarts for winter use in bread and smoothies.  The plants are now producing smaller berries that we are eating standing in the sunshine in the garden or in yogurt or ice cream.  There is also an abundance of raspberries that are set to ripen within a week or two, enough for eating, freezing and perhaps some jam.  The blueberries are few, but the grapes are coming in heavy and this will be the first year we harvest grapes from our vine, so I am excited to taste them.

This is the last of the spinach and lettuce.  I finally picked it all as it was going to seed and just not going to produce more with the upper 80s and 90s that we have been getting.  Seems odd that it grew so poorly in the cool days of June since it is a plant that likes cool weather, I suppose that it too needs plenty of sun to grow well.  Each year is different with the garden, last year I had an abundance of lettuce and spinach for a full two months, enough to freeze some of the spinach, and again a good fall crop.  This year I am hoping for a good fall crop and missing all the salads we ate last year.  We will be relying on our canned, dehydrated, frozen and preserved by any other method more this year than ever.

As I mentioned in an earlier post we are living more frugally in anticipation of a change in circumstances.  I turned in my resignation at the library just over two weeks ago and I will be working my last day there on August 31st.  This is a huge change for me since I have worked there for over 20 years now, I loved change when I was in my 20s and 30s, I find it scarier in my late 40s.  At the same time I am excited for the new opportunities that having more time will bring.  My husband and I have personal goals that we will have more time to pursue with a lighter schedule. I will not be leaving the work force completely though, and that is the second part of this big change, I will be working with my mother in her health food store.  So in light of that you can expect to see more health related posts and recipes in the future.  I am really looking forward to this change, but in the meantime I am super busy working full-time at the library, part-time at the health food store, gardening, and living as homemade and sustainably as we can to see how little money we can live on.  Writing has been pushed aside for living, but I still have much to write about as time affords.

Sense of Home Kitchen / Homemade Living / In the Garden