Still fairly sick, and sorry I have been away for so long. I have a post scheduled up on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op today about Environmental Friendly Cleaning products. I hope you will drop on by.
Gav
@ By Gavin Webber 2 Comments
Still fairly sick, and sorry I have been away for so long. I have a post scheduled up on the Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op today about Environmental Friendly Cleaning products. I hope you will drop on by.
Gav
@ By Gavin Webber 3 Comments
So, on Saturday, first of all, Kim mowed what little lawn that we still have that is under the hills-hoist. I think she quite enjoyed it, and it definitely saved my back. It is the only lawn we have remaining other than the medium strips between the footpath and road. I packed away all of the tools that I had used to build the chook house into the shed, and got rid of the paint equipment that Kim had used to paint Ben’s room with.
Then we cleared away big weeds from under the plum tree to give it a fighting chance for its fruiting season. It is in full bloom now, and we had to be very careful, so not to knock any flowers off. Each flower destroyed is one less plum in Jan/Feb. The bees are going crazy around it at the moment, which is just how things should be. It is well mulched with wood chips, and I think it must be at least 20 years old, and is still going strong.
Next, we cut back a jasmine vine that had died off, and was on its last legs. Seizing the opportunity to plant more edible species, we decided to put two passionfruit vines in its place. It should grow up the trellis quite quickly. We had to trim back quite a big shrub first to get to the jasmine, remove the vine, and dig out most of the roots. With me on my knees and Kim standing, we managed to cut, dig, unwind the jasmine off of the trellis and get the passionfruit in the well prepared and compost laden ground. What a pain in the behind that was. The roots went everywhere. Luckily, it was planted in a large raised bed next to the plum tree, and I had put weed matting and rubble at the bottom of the bed when I constructed it, so the roots did not reach the ground level. I didnt get a photo of the passionfruit in the ground, but here is one of the nice tidy fruit tree/chook house garden. Click on the picture for a larger image.
To finish it all off for the day, Kim swept the cement floor under the veranda, and we decided to call it a day. We both held up pretty well, and it took us about three hours all up. I then rested for most of the afternoon in bed reading blogs, and Kim did some art work.
The next job was to clean out the veranda gutter as it was full of rotten leaves. Kim was in her element. With me holding the ladder, she was up it with bucket in hand mucking about in the gutter. It took about 30 minutes to clear and I dumped all the leaves into the compost bin. After the gutters, I quickly checked the top of the rainwater tank, and removed a few leaves from the leaf and mozzie guard, and then put the ladder away for the day.
I then crawled along on my hands and knees and weeded the entire pebbled area in the fruit tree garden. I ended up with two 10 litre buckets full of little weeds. They manage to grow in between the rocks and are on the surface side of the weed matting. It looks very tidy now. The weeds went straight into the Aerobin as it is the hottest compost bin and will kill any weed seeds. It took me over an hour, but I took a break every 15 minutes just to make sure I didn’t do any back damage.
Then it was around to the other side of the house to the deck area. We haven’t used this much in Winter because it is just too cold, and I blatantly refuse to buy a gas deck heater. Heating the outside is not my idea of being green. On a side note, I read somewhere that they were going to ban outside gas heaters in Europe for that very reason. Too much wasted energy for little effect.
Kim got to work straight away, and Ben decided to help vacumm all of the flower heads and leaves. It was comical to watch, and once he even managed to suck his tracksuit pant leg half way up the pipe! I had a great laugh. As Kim was moving furniture around, I watered the potted plants. Here is the finished area all ready for Nan’s visit.
Other than watering the seedlings in the green house, I didn’t do much more in the afternoon. By the time we finished it was about 1500, so we called it a day and cracked open a bottle of red. Here are the seedlings. Still only the broccoli showing, but there looks like some movement in the capsicum row!
On the tray above are the six tomato plants, with three now showing flowers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have fruit on them before I get them in the ground.
And just for Kel, here is a picture of the thermometer that I have hung inside the greenhouse. It is a balmy 23 degrees C inside, with an outside temp of 15. Truly, a winter in Fiji!
When we went inside, Kim made and baked a small loaf of bread and some hot dog rolls. For dinner we had some sausages in the rolls, and home made chips on the side. Not very healthy, but after a hard days work, it was just what we needed. It was our version of fast food, without the bajillion calories! A great go-slow weekend with plenty of rest in between bursts of enjoyable work. Rock on Wednesday. We all can’t wait to go to the airport and pick up Pam (Nan). I hope she carbon offset her flight!
@ By Gavin Webber 1 Comment
We started using grey water at the very beginning of the journey, so we needed to change our laundry powder to one that had no Phosphorous and no Sodium so that we could use the water neat in the garden. The phosphorous would have damaged the native Australian plants, and the sodium tends to make the soil repel water, and increases the salinity. Also any run-off that the plants don’t use, does not contaminate the ground water. We found, after trying a couple of NP brands, that the Planet Ark Aware laundry powder worked the best, and after reading an article in Choice, it was not made from any petrochemicals. Kim raves about it to anyone who will listen, because a 1 Kg box lasts her approximately 5 weeks for 6 peoples clothes as you only use 3 tablespoons per wash. It will probably last longer now that Adam has moved out. We also use a NP fabric softener, but don’t use it very much. When washing towels, Kim pops in a few drops of eucalyptus oil to kill of any bacteria. It makes them smell nice too.
With the laundry sorted, we looked to the kitchen. We buy an earth friendly washing up liquid for the kitchen dishes that is also low in phosphates and sodium. We stopped using the dishwasher two weeks ago and gave it a thorough clean with vinegar and bi-carb soda, then put it through a cycle. So we are not only saving water, about 8 Kwh of power a week, and caustic dish washing tablets, but we have also realised something profound. When you wash dishes by hand, and you have someone drying them with you, you actually talk to each other and everything is cleaned far better than it would have in a dishwasher. Not only do you have quality control via an instant feedback loop, you can have a laugh and a joke around at the same time. There is only one rule that we stick to, and that is that the cook does not wash up. You can shotgun for the rest of the washing, drying or putting away!
Cleaning windows and mirrors is a cinch with vinegar in a spray bottle and newspaper. Not only is it cheap, but it keeps mould away, and stops mirrors from fogging up. It gives a nice clear finish without any smell. You can throw that Windex away now! I would rather have a small child accidentally swallow vinegar than some of the other nasties kept under the average Australian kitchen sink!
About a month ago we had a bad smell coming out of the kitchen sink, so it was out with the bi-carb soda, and down the drain with about 4 tablespoons. After about a minute I followed it up with a quarter of a cup of white vinegar and let it all fizzle. Let it go for about 3 minutes and then flush with some very hot water. Our drain will never have smelled so nice, and I may have gotten rid of a lot of built up grease as well.
The last cleaning thing I can think of is that Amy gives the showers a once over with some paste made up of bi-carb with an Ejoy glove and old rags, that gets rid of the soap scum that collects there. A little bit hot water afterwards washes it all away. Oh, I forgot the toilet. We use an Earth Choice toilet cleaner that works just as well as any of the more dangerous types. It is NP and its main ingredients are water, citric acid, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Glycolic Acid, eucalyptus oil, and Sodium Laureth Sulphate.
I ensured that the ingredients were only derived from plants and were fairly safe. You can use vinegar instead, but I am yet to convince Kim.
As for washing ourselves, I just use pure soap, but Kim and the kids use a liquid soap that is one of the organic brands. We use an organic shampoo, but have heard that bi-carb works just as well in very small doses. I don’t think I will stretch my greenness or luck that far with Kim :). I shave with a pigs bristle brush, having given away shaving cream in a can, but am having trouble finding an alternative to disposable razors or blades. I don’t shave very much, as I have a goatee, so I would not use as many as the average guy. I might investigate a cut throat razor in the near future, as they last for a very long time, and you sharpen (or is it blunt-en) it yourself. Sweeney Todd eat your heart out!
Well that is about all I can think that we use. We simply questioned if things were safe for us and the planet, and made the changes slowly over the course of about a year. If you have a couple of bottles of white vinegar and a big box of bi-carb soda, you have almost all you need to clean the house up. I did get most of the tips originally from reading Greeniology. Tanya Ha has a whole chapter on green cleaning. It helped finding all the good tips in the one place, and the tips a simple to implement.
To summarise, we save so much money on cleaning products (vinegar and bi-carb are cheap), feel safe when we clean, and know that it is better for the planet. Simply green, and making a difference! All we need to do now is safely get rid of the unused toxic products that are left over under the sink.