Question
Hi there!  I have jumping spiders upstairs in my home - we've had lots of rain lately.  Are there any herbs I can either have living in pots, or put bags with dried herbs around to repel the spiders?  

Thank you!  

Answer
Hi Lyndy;
I am just going to copy and paste the answer I just wrote to someone else. It fits your question too.

Hi Tom;
When you get your lawn on a totally organic program, and have a healthy enviornment for lizards, toads, grss snakes etc, they will eat all the ants, and get fat and sassy, and you will not have ant problems.
Remember though, if you use any chemicals, you will undo the benefits of the organics.

I put cedar bark mulch all over my lawn. It repels fleas, ticks and lots of other insects, including termites.
I put a trail of it around the foundation of the house when termites are ready to swarm, and in 40 years that we have lived here, have had no termites.
My neighbors have though, so it is the cedar that keeps them away from our house.
For every harmful insect that lives in your soil,there are hundreds of beneficial insects that feed on the harmful ones. chemicals kill the good with the bad.

   In the house.
To repel cockroaches, I put a piece of rosemary about 1 inch long on each panrty, cupboard shelf, and toss a few in eaxh closet. I put a piece about 3 inches long under each appliance, anywhere roaches can come in and hide.
I use a lot of lavender.
I use lavender oil to make bath salts with epsom Salts and a lavender oil in it. Makes great bath salts, and relaxes as well as soaks the soreness out of joints and pain, a lot.
It is a very relaxing scent, and is great for smelling to help you drop off into a sound and relaxed sleep.
I put about 2 drops on my hands and rub them together, then rub a stuffed toy well, to give to a fussy child that is too tired to go to sleep.
The little tyke will drop off to sleep in just a few minutes. Works on me too.
Now I have learned that lavender repels some insects.
Since I have started using lavender body wash, and lavender scented bath powder, mosquitoes that used to zoom in on me, don't bite me anymore.
Basil is supposed to repel fleas and some other insects.
I use lemon scented Pledge on my furniture, so that may be why i don't have ants.
where ants come in, if you sqweeze a trail of lemon juice, they won't cross it.
I get cedar oil, and paint a line of it along the clothes rods in my closets, and down the door frames and around the baseboard. Makes a cedar closet out of it. It is enough to keep moths etc out of your closet, but not enough to transfer a cedar smell to your clothes.
I put fresh rosemary down about once a month, and paint the cedar oil about 3 or 4 times a year.
Since I started using the rosemary, I also don't have silverfish, earwigs,or spiders, which are bad down here, and I used to have them a lot.
I also tuck a few sprigs of lavender, rosemary, a little less basil and mint, between the waterbed mattress, and the frame. the heat from the mattress activates the scents and imparts that up around me as i sleep.
Rosemary, cedar oil and lavender is all i use a lot of in the house.
I never had an any problem, and maybe it was the lemon scented furniture polish etc that kept them away.
Put a couple of little Geccos or anoles in your attic, and they will eat bugs that hide up there.
I have lots of lizards in the yard, and they scamper up the wals and into my attic ( because I has a small hole in a corner of my bathroom, and one ran down from the attic once), that look like anoles. they eat ALL the aphids off my roses.
For molds and fungus, outside ( don't get them inside) I use baking soda disolved in water to spray plants and areas that get fungus with. I could never find how much soda to use, so I used 1/4th cup per gallon of water.
That works, so I stick with that amount.
Since I went organic in the garden as well as in the house, my Asthma is 90% better, and i don't ever have to put up with insects.
Hope this helps you out some.
Charlotte
this is for you Lindy, about the pots etc.
I grow all my herbs in containers, because some of them don't winter over outside, and since i also like to use fresh herbs for cooking, I bring the ones that aren't evergreen inside when it gets too cold outside for them. Put them somewhere they will get plenty of sun.
Rosemary is evergreen down here, as our weather is not too cold in winter. I am in North Texas.
rosemary can get quite big. It will get about 3 ft. high,and about 3 ft.wide, and in the ground, where it is evergreen, it will spread out a lot, and send shoots from underground out and make a new bush beside it.
I grow sage, sweet basil, oregano, bith Mexical and Greek, lavender, marjoram, and chives,in containers.
Mints do better in containers, or raised beds, because if you plant them in a regular flower bed, they will take over everything.
Around roses is another good place to grow herbs, and the shorter ones fill in around the roses nicely.
I am wanting to lant some Terragon in containers, because that is a lovelt herb to cook with.
Write anytime if you have more questions.
Charlotte