September 20th, 2008 Sarah Posted in Business News, Environment, Garden, Newsletter No Comments »
Hi Folks,
It’s Equinox and the day is equal to the night; tomorrow the day is shorter and we’re moving into Autumn and towards Winter.
With that in mind, I’d like to focus on the garden and tidying up out there before the weather turns properly and we want to batten down the hatches and drink hot chocolate in front of a blazing fire…. Well, I don’t have a fire here but it would be nice wouldn’t it? Apart from the bits of wood, bark and general muck dropped as you carry the logs in.
August 31st, 2008 Sarah Posted in Environment, Garden, Soap nuts 2 Comments »
I have sundew, fly trap and pitcher plants. As carnivorous plants they have some quite specific requirements. They need to be constantly moist but with rain water as tap water is toxic to them. They need reasonable sun, some like full sun some prefer shade.
August 25th, 2008 Sarah Posted in Environment, Family, Garden, Home, Soap nuts No Comments »
Ethics Trading’s best seller continues to be the wonderful Soap Nut.
Essentially you can do ALL your cleaning using soap nuts. Yes, ALL. It’s perfectly possible to clean your home, your laundry, car, curtains, children, floors, windows, patio, garden furniture, well everything really. If it gets cleaned with some sort of wet detergent, or detergent and water then soap nuts can do it.
If you need a Soap Nut Solution then the instructions for making one can be found as part of the Soap Nut Information PDF file.
They’re also good in the garden, not only for cleaning your patio and garden furniture, but as an insect repellent. Plants sprayed with a mild soap nut solution have much less green and black fly and don’t get seem to be eaten as badly by slugs and snails. In fact, soap nut solution appears to kills slugs and snails while it drives away the greenfly.
Oh and a mild soap nut solution in a spray bottle works well for damping down wall paper for stripping if you’d normally use soapy water - I’ve just done my bathroom.
How much more versatile can you get?
Soap nuts, the Ultimate in renewable resources, versatile and contributing to the carbon cycle too!
August 15th, 2008 Sarah Posted in Business News, Competitions, Environment, Fair Trade, Garden, Media, Soap nuts No Comments »
Reduce your rubbish and win prizes! with MyZeroWaste.com. It’s simple - go over there and pledge to do something, there’s a list and you’ll need to feedback on how it went after you do it, so no cheating!
August 10th, 2008 Sarah Posted in Environment, Garden, Uncategorized 4 Comments »
My potatoes got blight this year which means I can’t compost the tops of the plants, peelings or any other bits I cut off. Apparently you shouldn’t really compost spud bits anyway, unless you have a long term hot compost bin or heap. Which I don’t.
August 1st, 2008 Sarah Posted in Environment, Family, Garden 2 Comments »
Everything there - lettuce, peas, carrots, chard - all started life as a seed sown in a pot made with the Paper Potter.
July 30th, 2008 Sarah Posted in Environment, Family, Garden, Soap nuts 7 Comments »
Soap grows on trees! Anyone who has been reading here for any length of time or known me on forums, or even in real life, will know this already. So to manufacture soap nuts you need some land, a tree or several and a person able to harcest the berries when they dry. That’d be no waste going to landfill from the production process then.
July 18th, 2008 admin Posted in Environment, Family, Garden, Home, Uncategorized No Comments »
Those of you that know me from various places as well as in real life will know that I just love my garden. So it was only natural that I took Ethics Trading into the garden too.
June 15th, 2008 admin Posted in Environment, Family, Garden, Home, Soap nuts 2 Comments »
Pour approx 1 litre of water into a cooking pot; add about 50g cracked soap nut shells; cover and boil, then simmer for approximately 10 minutes. The boiling process extracts the saponin from the nut shells and combines with the water. Let the infusion cool and you can use it immediately, or let it steep overnight. The soap nut infusion is theoretically suitable for every kind of cleaning - even wash your car with it!
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