I've made a bright new discovery using Lemon Grass! If there is one thing I know, there is more than one way to skin a cat when your making your own cleaning supplies.

I've been playing around for awhile now with different herbal mixes and infusions in my homemade laundry soap. I think I might have just touched on to something with my latest experiment.

If you don't make your own laundry detergent, I truly recommend you give it a whirl. It is simple, safe and non toxic for your family and the earth as well. Plus the money it saves is incredible. My soap averages out to about 5 cents a load!!  Visit Thyme Square Gardens for my recipes. They include everything from making your own Laundry Detergent, Bleach Substitute and a good all purpose cleaner.

In that older post where I share my cleaning recipes, I was wanting to begin making my own essential oils and I have been hard at it. I simply can't see the point in buying essential oils when they are so simple to make. And with a garden loaded with herbs the prospects are endless.

Last year I shared an article on making your own Tinctures and Teas here at Natural Family Today. One of those tinctures that I had made was with Lemon Grass.

In Texas the Lemon Grass grows into sky scrapers. I had to put it to use! What else could I do? The smell was fabulous! I knew I simply could not waste it so I had to put my thinking cap on.

One of the first discoveries I had made about Lemon Grass is that it is a natural mosquito repellant. It is also suppose to be very good for your skin. Aside from adding it to recipes for cooking and making delicious teas with it I decided to start adding it to my cleaning supplies.

At first it was just intended to add that wonderful fresh lemon scent to them, but actually Lemon Grass is another one of those herbs that contains antibacterial and antifungal agents. I saw in one report that was published in the medical journal Microbios in 1996, researchers demonstrated that lemongrass was effective against 22 strains of bacteria and 12 types of fungi.

So here is my hypothesis! If Lemon Grass repels mosquitoes, it smells wonderful, it has disinfectant properties, why not add it to the laundry!! I bet I could even make some of those cool homemade dryer sheets for the times I cannot air out the herbal laundry!

Don't miss adding Lemon Grass to your herb garden. Perhaps during those summer months we can enjoy the outdoors by using Natural Remedies!

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Pamela Kimsey

Pammy is a organic gardener in Southeast Texas who believes diversity with natural habitats is the key to a successful garden. With a background as a commercial grower and manager for a large wholesale nursery, she became quickly dismayed with the over use of chemicals and the effects they have on life and the environment.

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