Eight Acres

I know I keep saying that I hate cleaning, but now that we are in our new house, I have more motivation.  Firstly this house is way nicer than our old house, from the colour of the walls (that we chose of course) to the high ceilings and better lighting, I just enjoy being in the house more than ever before.  And I know how much effort went into getting it this nice so I don't want to see it getting dusty and dirty.   Permaculture principle "produce no waste" suggests that timely maintenance prevents wasteful rework and big jobs to fix things that could have taken very little time if they were done earlier.  This helps me to prioritise small cleaning jobs before they turn into big ones. One new thing that we have tried since moving is the ENJO range of cleaning products ( affiliate link ).  You won't find ENJO in your supermarket, its sold by independent consultants, and also available online ( I get a small commission if you use my links) . E...

As you know, I do not enjoy cleaning at all, it just feels like a waste of good gardening time.  However I do enjoy living in a clean and tidy house, so it is a necessary evil.  My aim is to spend minimal time cleaning, and I also don't like to use chemicals.  Recently Biome sent me some natural cleaning products to try out in our new kitchen.  If you haven't heard of Biome, they can be found online as well as five locations in Brisbane.  They believe in zero waste, toxin free and ethical choices, so its just the kind of business that I like to support, and they have some great options for cleaning.  Lucky for me, as there is nowhere local to buy this kind of thing in rural QLD, so I have to order everything online or make my own. The new dishdrawer In particular I was looking for a suitable dishwasher detergent as we had never owned a dishwasher before and I really didn't know where to start.  I read some of the ingredients of the supermarket...

When I occasionally walk up the "cleaning" aisle of the supermarket I am baffled by all the different products, gadgets and essential items required to keep our house clean!  I have never made a secret of the fact that I don't particularly like spending time cleaning the house.  I have much more interesting things to do in the garden, but I do try to keep in to a minimum standard (and to be fair, Pete is the chief toilet cleaner).  We don't buy any cleaners from the supermarket these days, but we do occasionally clean the house.... more on this in a minute.... This July Pete and I have taken up the challenge once again to reduce and analyse our single use plastic consumption with  Plastic Free July . Throughout July have to shared with you our progress, and lots of tips and ideas, and its been great to see you all join in. I have one more giveaway, so join in, share your ideas and have a chance to win some plastic-free products this July! In Week 1 I wrote about...

I bought a tiny little soapwort plant a couple of years ago and I have been waiting patiently for it to grow because I really wanted to try using it for laundry detergent.  I found out about soapwort after I started using soap nuts for laundry.  I like soap nuts , but they are imported from overseas and can't be grown here as they are considered a weed plant. my soapwort plant before I harvested some leaves Soapwort ( Saponaria officinalis ) is commonly grown as a flowering plant (unfortunately I don't have a photo of mine in flower).  Its leaves and roots contain saponins, which is a chemical that lathers when mixed with water.  This makes soapwart an effective cleaner.  Soapwart can also be made into a decoction to treat external skin conditions (I haven't tried this), and although it can be taken internally for various ailments, it comes with many warnings, so I haven't tried that either.  As soapwort can be poisonous, you need to grow it where gra...

A friend taught me to make soap at the start of January .  She just taught me to follow a simple recipe using tallow, olive oil and coconut oil, with the cold process method.  We have been using that soap in the bath and in a soap shaker for doing the dishes , and its surprising how fast we use it, so it was time to make some more.  I rendered the rest of the tallow in the slow cooker again and read a book about soap making , so that I could figure out my own recipe this time. It helps to have a basic understanding of the soap making process before you start.  To make a soap, fat or oil is reacted with caustic, this forms the solid soap, glycerine, and if any of the starting ingredients are in excess, they will also remain in the final product (so if you have too much caustic, there will be some caustic in the final soap, and if you have too much fat, there will be some fat in the final soap - this is called superfat).  In this post I am only talking about co...

I'm not much of a cleaner.  Our house is pretty messy most of the time.  About once a week I try to at least tidy everything away and sweep the floor (we have tiles throughout the tiny house).  I try to keep the kitchen clean and sanitary (what will all the crazy things fermenting on the bench!), and we wipe the bath out before we have the next bath :)  I have never been one to buy lots of cleaning products.  I find the range of different products quite bewildering and try to avoid that isle of the supermarket because I can't stand the smell of the fake fragrances. The things that we do buy are dishwashing liquid, toilet cleaner and a bench-spray-cleaner-thingy (we already replaced laundry powder with soap nuts ).  I've been thinking for a while that we really need to find an alternative to all these products.  I hate the smell of these products, I hate that they have unnecessary blue and green colouring in them (why do I want to wash my di...