Good Fungicide

If you need a good safe organic fungicide simply mix 2 tablespoons of Baking Soda per gallon of water, spay the plants liberally. This puts an alkaline coating on the plants which doesn't allow the fungus to grow and is completely safe for both plants and animals.

Learning to Prepare

My family is part of a church group here that focuses on family. They do not only incorporate religious studies in their gatherings every week, but they also teach how to take care of your family. Everything from paying off debt to how to prepare and be prepared.

One of their lessons is how to stockpile for future emergencies. I was surprised when I read the pamphlet. Keeping cash on hand. Paying off debt and setting aside the credit cards. Making sure to pay bills as they come in. Being on a budget. It is something that we are not taught in school. Something significant that they teach is the rotation of food on your shelves.

Now, we've always had a nice stockpile of certain things. Things we use on a regular basis that we buy a lot of while it is on sale at the grocery store, farmers market and the bulk store. We have a food saver that we use a lot to store items that come in bulk so that we can handle it better and use it as we go instead of having to worry about moths hatching in the 20 pounds of flour sitting in the back room.

I've been thinking about this more and more since Patti's current ezine issue came out and one of the articles was about taking care to be prepared. The author of the article proclaimed she had enough money in the bank to take care of business for 6 months and I thought "Wow! I thought it was good to have two!" But the more I think about it, the more I realize that she is absolutely right. The more the better.

But it isn't just the fundage sitting in the bank or the wad of cash hidden under the mattress. It is more than that. It is the list of things that we have on hand that will see us through the hard times that are ahead. And I thought I'd jump on that band wagon on the importance of being prepared like Cynthia McKenna from Patti's ezine, (be patient, this article isn't up just yet, Patti will get it up shortly, make sure to subscribe so you get it before it goes up on the site) or like the posts from Down to Earth, one of my favorite blogs to read.

Taking stock.

What do you use the most? It is an important question. Getting out there and buying a bunch of stuff that you might kinda eat won't do it, because while that is sitting around collecting dust, the stuff you do use is still being used and replaced, used and replaced instead of being on hand. Having two children, we have a fairly healthy appetite for all sorts of things that we need and the idea here is to take a small amount of money and stock just those things that you will need the most.

Storage.

I've broken it down into the following categories. Shelf stable items and Jar or canned items. Frozen items. Vacuum sealed items.

Shelf stable items are the things you buy right off the self that do not require cooling to stay good. Honey, soy, teryaki, marinades, salsa, salad dressings, ketchup, yellow and brown mustard, bouillon, pan cake syrup, balsamic vinegar, flavored vinegars, cooking oils, peanut butter. Most of this comes sealed so that it has a long shelf life. Canned and jar items like peanut butter, jam, jelly, preserves, stocks, vegetables will all do well for long periods of time as well because they are canned in a process.

Frozen items include things like meat and bread but it also means that you can buy a ton of cheese and butter and put that into the freezer as well. We have two freezers. One for meat and one for everything else. I keep vegetables, butter, cheese and bread in the smaller of the two and in the larger, the side of beef we purchased and meat that I find on sale at the grocery store.

Vacuum sealed items. I buy a lot in bulk because it is cheaper and I spend less money in the long run. Spending $20 on bulk culinary herbs that I didn't have room to grow or use during off season makes a big difference. Thyme, rosemary, basil, black pepper, marjoram, coriander, cilantro, savory, mustard seed, and a lot of other herbs I purchased through my favorite bulk herb store, herbalcom.com.

Compare it to the price at the grocery store. What I would pay for 1/2 oz to 1 oz at the store, I can pay for a pound from herbalcom. Doesn't it make more sense to buy it by the pound? When I got them, they came in these wonderful blue bags, but that wasn't a good way for me to keep them stored so I sealed them all in smaller packages with the vacuum sealer. Things like whole rosemary don't stay sealed in those packages for long as they making holes in the bags as the package becomes hard from the absence of air so they are stored in jars instead.

I also do that with the rice, flour, cornmeal, oats and other items that I can buy in bulk. It saves my shelf space for jars and bottles of shelf stable items. I keep them organized in bags that I can hang from shelving in our storage area and in boxes for what we don't need immediately.

Use.

As the container in the kitchen is depleted, it is replenished from the shelf or bags from the food storage. As the bags are depleted, the boxes come open and replenish. As the boxes are depleted, we buy more to replace.

It is a simple system and in the house we live in now, we are cramped for space so every centimeter of space is used to its maximum. And with our impending move, we have bought less to save on the transporting costs. If I'm moving a bunch of food that I can replace after I get there, I'm spending more in gas, which I don't want to do. My shelves have never been so bare but I'll have less work to do because I won't have to move it. It's a simple system that has worked for us for several years and has kept us from sinking when we had something big come up that we were not expecting.

How to do it?

Take $10 and buy it while it is on sale. Take $20 if you can. You've spent less and you've got a lot to tide you over. Go through and make a list of all the things that you seem to run out of and stare at the bottle balefully wishing you could squeeze that last drop out. Those are the things you need to buy. We go through a phenomenal amount of Worcestershire Sauce at my house. We use it for everything from a sauce for dipping steak to marinades. I buy it in large bottles at the bulk store and we never have to worry about it because I take inventory of items like that frequently to make sure that I don't get down to my last bottle and then end up staring at the bottle balefully wishing I had more.

Excel is your friend.

I have excel sheets for everything! Bills and costs and budgets and storage lists. I keep one big file with a master list of all of these on different tabs to make it easier. I have put in time to color code and set it up so that it is easy for me to read and easy for me to spot something that might need to be replaced. I carry my lap top into the storage area and check numbers against quantity. It only takes a few minutes and I find that it gives me a sense of accomplishment. If you don't have lap top, you can print these out and check them off and then update your sheet.

But keeping yourself organized is important. Planning on what you're going to buy and how much you can set aside to buy it. Meal planning can save a lot of time and keep the hassle and frustration of not having something on hand that you need. Keeping an inventory to monitor what you have and what you need is helpful. Build your inventory as you go and keep up with how much you put into it so you can see how much you are saving in the long run, it will help you stick to this if it is new to you.

Running a household can be difficult, but if you and your family work together to minimize the little nuisances that can crop up, then you will find that everything will go smoothly. My children help me in the inventory, they read off the labels and count the amounts and then we make it a group effort to keep up our inventory. Not only do I get help, but they are learning something valuable from me to help them when they are on their own. It will be second nature to them as adults and maybe will keep them from making the same mistakes I made when I was figuring all of this stuff out.

Take stock. Make lists. Set aside a small amount. Buy on sale. Organize your stores. Keep an inventory record. Know how much you're spending and saving. Plan.

This works for more than just food. Toilet paper, paper towels, tissue, shampoo, soap, deodorant, cleaning supplies, toothpaste. Everyday objects too, toothbrushes, bathing sponges or scrunchies and dish washing sponges or scrunchies, ect. If you think about things that you use on a regular basis and then spend a little on them, you'll find you'll have more money in the future.

Make your own. I have posts about stuff like this throughout. Cloth Swiffer Pads. Making your own furniture polish. Household cleaners made of baking soda, vinegar, and borax. Make your own handwipes. A lot of things that can be made at home with things that you have on hand that will cost you less money and give you a chance to be harsh chemical free.

Saving money is more important now than ever. We have left the era of availability behind and are moving into a future of uncertainty. Take steps to make sure that you aren't one of the families out there that is in desperate need by doing a few small things to help keep you comfortable in the future!

Think Green

I did post a few things on green cleaning while between projects one day. And I fully intend to continue that entire line. Like now.

There is really no need to purchase the hundreds of chemicals whose sole purpose on this planet are to create plastic for land fills and to give everyone in the house a headache among other far worse ailments. The shelves overflow with items that need ventilation while using. I don't know about you but I don't have a vent to turn on in every room and not all messes happen near the hood at the stove.

Remember the commercials from the 50's? Almost every woman that was witnessed cleaning wore yellow gloves that came virtually up to the shoulder when the boom of bleach and ammonia products hit the market full force. I'm sure it occurred to these women that wrapping their hands and arms in a thick yellow rubber plastic wrap was to protect their delicate skin and nails from harm. And while it did that job just fine, it didn't protect their lungs, their cells, the rest of their body from harmful cancer causing agents and other bad stuff.

So lets face it. If you eat it, its probably fairly safe to use around the house, right? Say.. vinegar. Baking soda. Cornstarch. Borax. Castile and veggie based soaps. Lemon juice. Essential oils. Salt. Toothpaste! Mouthwash (I hated this particular one as a kid). These offer a host of home remedies. And this is where I got my start after I gardened with my father. I learned from my grandmother.


For my grandmother there is nothing that sulfur, rubbing alcohol and vics salve couldn't treat. And she was mostly right. When my child's first major injury spontaneously manifested in the form of a screech, a horrible breath stealing thud and then the moment that hung between "Am I ok?" and "No I AM NOT, MOM!!!" came to me, I knew exactly what to do to handle it. And it wasn't a trip to the emergency room. It was a trip to the kitchen table. And I fixed it. Not with everything my grandmother taught me. But some of it mixed with a new idea that has come about since she was a young lady. I got my son wrapped up with some liquid band aid after I cleaned him up in the shower (head wound you know, they bleed and bleed and BlEeD). Bleeding at a manageable trickle saw me drying him up and putting on some liquid band aid. He was right as rain as soon as the last sniffle subsided. Once he was ready, because it takes 3 year olds a chance to get right again after having their head gushing blood, I dabbed on the lavender and started the healing process. Nothing more complicated than that. No staples (he didn't need one, it was a small gash), no stitches, no needles poking into his scalp to numb it. No, I've got a quarter inch rip in his scalp under control here with basic home remedies.

Aloe for burns! That has taken off. I visit seed and plant swaps at some one's house and I see it in the kitchen window in nearly all those homes. Didn't used to though. Glad to see it coming back.

Essential oils for the win. Fragrant, calming and just plain lovely and antibacterial on the homefront graces my medicine cabinet. Lavender for antimicrobial properties. Tea Tree for similar uses. Great for dandruff and ailments of the scalp. Cloves for tooth aches. Ginger for nausea. Cinnamon to settle the upset stomach and if that doesn't work, a teaspoon of baking soda in a tall glass of cool water was around long before fizzy tablets out of paper packages.

We're over run with insect critters this year. When I was a kid and I would find myself eaten alive by the various blood sucking bugs and whatnot. At the end of the day and I've showered, I would scratch until I bled. So what is the remedy for this? Mouthwash on the bite. I know that sounds kinda silly but it works. Listerine works well. A dab of that stuff on the bite leaves it calmed. No more itching. But one must be careful because if it is an open sore, it inflames the open sore and it burns. And while after a while, the angry pounding in the affected area will go down, one has no desire to scratch at it again for fear that the bottle of mouthwash will come back out of the bathroom to give a second round of treatment. Just watch that they are no open sores and save yourself some pain.

For bee and wasp stings, tobacco right on the sting helps to draw out the poison. And then a damp cake of baking soda slathered on the affected area to help out even more. During the summers when I was 4 and 5 I remember that my mother would leave a cup of the stuff sitting on the counter by the phone so that all she'd have to do is just add water.

Such things were used for such simple every day injuries. They can be used in the house, too.

Cleaning solutions that have lavender and clove and cinnamon based on the time of the year that you're cleaning can not only clean but set mood far better than Pine Sol or 409.

Vinegar can destroy virtually any smell. My husband emptied the cat litter and didn't realize there was a hairline crack in the bottom of the pan. So over a weekend where we had the air off and the doors all open, the house heated up a bit and then there was this smell. We tried to follow our nose and we kept ending up in a clean bathroom. I look at my husband, he looks at me and we both look at the cat pan. "I just emptied that not long ago," he warned. "I am smelling it now," I replied. "It must be broken," I say after several long moments of us eyeing the enemy. "Maybe, it was dark, I could have done something to it," I take this in and wonder if he knew exactly what he did but didn't think the results would mean a difference. Bet he won't be doing that again. We bought a new pan and new litter and came back home. When he picked it all the way up, the culprit reveled himself. A line of red liquid. The smell was overwhelming.

I whipped out a quart of white vinegar from under the bathroom sink and a small tub. I poured the vinegar into the tub, filled it up the rest of the way with water and my husband who was considering why I didn't just whip out a bottle of bleach or something went with it like a champ and decided that it was rather nice. The bathroom as a whole didn't get unbearable. He could breath and with his breathing problems, there was no need to torture him with harsh chemicals. In about half the time it would have taken to clean with the other because it would chase him out for an hour until the fumes went down a bit, we got it mopped up, mop cleaned up, tub rinsed out and replaced, new box in place and litter in. That simple. No coughing fits that bring scarlet to the lips which has happened in the past with him.

We're at that point in our relationship where he actually listens to what I say and will accept that sometimes I might have a better idea. He is a city child. I am a country child. We learn from each other. He was amazed at how well it worked and how quickly it worked. Neutralized without a single gag or cough. The cool thing is that the vinegar mixed with a little water is great for fixtures and for cleaning tile and such. I noticed the tub hasn't been scrubbed down recently so I broke out a cloth and the baking soda, made a paste right on the cloth and got the ring of crap that my sons leave on there like daily completely off of there. It took a couple of minutes and I didn't have to get into a biohazard suit to do it and I didn't need to step out of the bathroom to get fresh air either and the tub is just as clean as if I had used a product that is caustic to humans. The coolest thing is that it won't hurt the kids so that cheap slave labor we have is going to be in high use because they can scrub every bit as well as I can and they do. Rack one up for me, they scrub, I garden. Even trade off I think. Considering most of the dirt gets in the tub when they garden.

My husband complained that I cook too much with smelling plants. Onions, garlic, and very aromatic fresh herbs like basil and such. With all that smell being washed off cutting boards and down the sink, it was smelling pretty bad. It was time to freshen up. I whipped out my baking soda and dumped a generous portion down the drain. My husband eyed me as if I were out of my mind. I used the old box out of the refrigerator so that I wasn't tapping into the good stuff in the cabinet. He waited to see how I was going to make this happen. When I motioned to him to watch as I poured the vinegar, he laughed. I made my own foaming snake to get all those smells right out of the sink. Haven't had that problem since.

Buying these things in bulk isn't difficult. Huge containers of baking soda and vinegar can be bought at the local club shop. It doesn't take much borax to go far unless you use it in all your laundry, which I do so I'm buying a box once a paycheck.

These are just the basics. There are a host of ways to use what I have listed here and there are also a host of other things that can be used as well. I plan on exploring this more because it is getting very expensive to buy the cleaners for $5+ a bottle when I can get a box of borax, a box of baking soda and a box of cornstarch for much less.

My cabinet used to be crammed with all sorts of cleaners. Bleach, ammonia, glass cleaner, brass polish, silver polish, all purpose cleaner, bathroom cleaner, tile cleaner, toilet cleaner, wipes for the house, wipes for the car, wipes for just about everything else... Now that has all been replaced with Baking soda, Borax, cornstarch, Diatomaceous Earth, white distilled vinegar, essential oils, lemon juice, washing soda, vegetable based soaps, and some other non-toxic cleaners.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up everything. I have the dish washing liquid still. The phosphates are not so good from an article I read a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't let that go just yet. And I use shampoo's that are probably on the chopping block next. As I get it all sorted, I'll transition completely and with luck, this article will get out there and get someone else. If it gets one person to make even a partial change, I'll be satisfied. For the moment...

Smooth skin

Use with water to create paste, apply to face, careful to avoid eyes and mouth, and leave on for 3 - 5 minutes, wash off. Your face will be noticeably softer.

Inexpensive Furinture Polish

Baking soda is a great polish for chrome, silver, marble furniture, piano keys.

Bug Bites

Apply baking soda to bug, bee, wasp, ant or any kind of bites for a quicker heal.

Sun-burn Solvent

To relieve minor burns (such as a sun burn), use baking soda and water.

Put Out Fires

A handful ofbaking soda can safely put out fires in many places; clothes, rugs, carpets etc

In the Garden

Occasionally, lightly sprinkle baking soda around flowerbeds to prevent rabbits from nibbling at your buds.

Sprinkle baking soda on slugs to get rid of them without having to resort to costly and toxic pesticides.

To sweeten your tomatoes by reducing their acidity, sprinkle baking soda lightly on the soil around your tomato plants. The soda from an old box used to absorb odors in the refrigerator is fine for this purpose.

Non-toxic pesticide

Put baking soda under sinks near pipe openings and along basement windows to repel ants, silver fish and roaches. Roaches will dehydrate and die after eating baking soda.

Paint Brushes

To restore brushes stiffened and hardened by paint, simply boil them in a solution of 1/2 gallon of water mixed with 1/4 cup vinegar and 1 cup of baking soda.

For Dogs and Cats

Sprinkle baking soda on your pet's brush or comb to deodorize their skin and fur.
Adding 2 tablespoons of baking soda to your dog's bath water and rinse water will make their coat clean and shiny.
Using baking soda on pet stains will eliminate the odor and prevent the pet from returning to the same spot in the future for another accident.
Sprinkling the litter box with baking soda keeps it fresh and deodorized.

Baby Fever Reducer

Bathe the infant in a tub of lukewarm water with 1/2 cup of baking soda. Use less if you are using a plastic infant tub. This is also an effective remedy for diaper rash.

An Inexpensive Sports Drink

For each quart of boiled water add 1 level tablespoon of salt, 1 rounded teaspoon of baking soda, 4 rounded teaspoons of sugar, and 1 package of sugar free Kool-Aid.
Stir until clear and refrigerate.

Denture and Retainer Cleaner

Combine 1 tablespoon of baking soda. 1 tablespoon of powdered laundry detergent and 1 cup of water. Soak the dentures or plastic retainer for 30 minutes and rinse well. If you prefer, you can use 1 cup of water and 2 teaspoons of baking soda in a glass.

Tooth Whitener

Mix 1 teaspoon baking soda with 1/2 teaspoon of lemon juice. Using a cotton swab, apply it to your teeth, brush clean with water and rinse. Coffee and tea stains will disappear! (NOTE: This is an occasional treatment only. Lemon juice contains a lot of acid and shouldn't be overused, or used alone. Combined with baking soda, the acid is buffered and won't destroy the tooth's enamel).

Breath Freshener

Sprinkle 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda into a cup of water and rinse. It will eliminate even morning mouth, garlic and onion odors! Make your own mouthwash by combining 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 1 cup of water. Add a few drops of flavoring if desired. Like mint extract.

Clean Glasses

Hold your eyeglasses over a sink and sprinkle a small amount of baking soda on them. With wet fingers, gently rub the lenses. Rinse clean and dry with a soft, lint-free cloth.

Underarm Deodorant

Sprinkle under your arms, even after shaving. It won't irritate your skin. If you prefer a smoother textured deodorant, mix it with a little talcum powder.

Clean Brushes and Combs

Fill sink with hot water and 1/4 cup of baking soda. Watch the dirt and oil dissolve away!