06/10/2026
Mugwort — Artemisia vulgaris, is doing its last good work right now. By October it's gone leggy and silver-backed, seeding along verges and field edges before the frost takes it down, and this is the window for cutting it if you're going to.
Herbalists have reached for it for centuries as a bitter, used in small culinary amounts to help digestion along, and it's long been burned or dried as a smoking herb for its reputed effect on dreaming, whether that's chemistry or ceremony depends who you ask. Named for Artemis, which tells you most of what you need to know about its character: sharp, a bit wild, not interested in being tamed into a tidy border plant.
It's cut in dry weather, tied in loose bunches, hung somewhere dark and left alone for a couple of weeks. Rush the drying and it moulds. Leave it too long on the stem and the leaves go brittle and lose their silver.
I haven't formulated with mugwort myself at Jules Of The Earth, my East Yorkshire apothecary for handmade botanical skincare, scent and witchcraft-rooted stock, but Artemisia earns its reputation honestly, bitter, defiant, genuinely useful.