Home-Made Cleaning Products

With the prices of commercial cleaners, having a clean home and car can be costly. Also, many of the ready-made cleaners you buy in the store can damage the environment. Here are some cleaning products you can make yourself at home, which are better for the environment and your budget.

Drain Unclogger and Freshener -

The next time your drain is plugged, choose a safer and more cost-effective way to unclog it. Pour ½ cup of baking soda down the drain. Add 1 cup of hot vinegar. Wait 5 minutes. Flush the drain with 2 quarts of hot water. Repeat if needed.

Home-Made Glass Cleaner -

To clean glass, combine 2 cups water, ½ cup white vinegar, and ¼ cup rubbing alcohol. Store the mixture in a clean spray bottle. To use, spray the solution on a rag or paper towel then wipe glass.

Home-Made Furniture Polish -

Make your furniture shine by mixing 1 cup of olive oil with ½ cup of lemon juice in a clean spray bottle. Shake the solution well before each use. To use, apply a small amount to your cleaning cloth or rag. Spread the polish over the furniture evenly. Dry the surface with a clean cloth.

Home-Made Multi-Purpose Cleaner -

You can easily keep bathroom and kitchen surfaces clean with this solution. Mix 1 cup of white vinegar and 1 cup of water in a clean spray bottle to create your own multi-purpose cleaner.

Home-Made Floor Cleaners -

Commercial cleaners are handy, but these are very simple to make and much more affordable. To make a cleaner for your wood floor, mix ½ cup of white vinegar with ½ cup of vegetable oil. This will make your floors shine as beautifully as any commercial cleaner. To clean your linoleum or tile floors, mix 1 tablespoon of liquid soap, ¼ cup of baking soda, 2 gallons of water and ¼ cup white vinegar.

Home-Made Car Cleaning Products -

You can save money by cleaning your car yourself using these environmentally friendly recipes. To wash the exterior of the car, all you need is a bucket of water and some liquid castile soap. Add a few drops of soap to the water and wash.

For an environmentally safe chrome cleaner, mix equal parts of white vinegar and water. Spray the solution on your wheels and rub with a sponge or cleaning rag. You can make a carpet and upholstery stain remover with white vinegar and baking soda. Make a paste with the vinegar and soda. Work the paste into any stains with a small scrub brush. Let the paste dry then vacuum. Any stains should be gone.

Now you can keep the environment clean while cleaning your home and car. Using the above recipes will also keep your cleaning costs down.

Organic Gardening – Easy Ways To Get Started Today

Growing your own herbs, vegetables, greens and fruit can be both incredibly rewarding and delicious. However, many gardeners rely on pesticides, herbicides and fungicides not to mention chemical fertilizers to help their garden grow. That’s not only unnecessary, it’s also unhealthy. All those nutritious veggies pack a much healthier punch if they’re sans harmful chemicals.

Step #1 Prepare your soil. Because your soil is the foundation of your garden, it is important to make sure it’s full of the right nutrients to feed your garden. Mix in organic material like compost or humus and consider having your soil tested. The proper soil conditions can make the difference between a sparse crop and award winning vegetables.

Step #2 Choose your crop. The second step to build an organic garden is to choose your crop. What are you going to grow in your garden? Initially, in addition to what you’re going to grow, you’ll want to decide if you want to purchase plants or start your garden from seeds. If you start early enough you can use seeds. If not, you can purchase organic plants from your local nursery.

Regardless of what you choose, seeds or plants, make sure they’re grown without chemicals.

Step #3 Organize your garden. Did you know some plants naturally protect other plants from disease and pests? It’s true. Marigolds for example, drive bugs away and if you plant them around the perimeter of your garden, they’ll help protect your herbs, greens and veggies.

Before transferring your plants into your garden, mark where you’re going to plant them. Make sure there is plenty of room between plants so they have room to grow and thrive. A tiny tomato plant can grow several feet high and several feet wide. Leave room.

Step #4 Natural pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. It’s been said that home gardeners generally use more chemicals on their gardens than farmers do. That’s a lot of chemicals! Interestingly enough, mild detergent and water protect many plants from harmful pests. Hot pepper sprays also work to fend off pests. And natural predators like frogs and ladybugs can keep your garden healthy and full.

Step #5 Maintenance. Watering and weeding are all you have in store for you until it’s time to harvest. Take care to not over water. Soil should be moist but not soaking. Weed on a regular basis to make sure your plants have all the nutrients and room in the soil they need to grow.

Organic gardening isn’t difficult when you start with a healthy foundation. Before you dive in and start a garden large enough to feed an army, choose a few plants you know your family will eat. Grow those successfully and next year you can grow a bigger garden.

Green Energy – The Way of the Future

You may have heard a lot about green energy the past year or so. Whether you’ve jumped on the green energy bandwagon or not, it is definitely not a trend. Green energy is the way of the future. Let’s take a look at exactly what green energy is, why it’s important and how you can use it to improve your life and your environment.

What is Green Energy?

Green energy is energy that produces little if no by products that harm the environment. For example, fossil fuels like oil are expensive to mine, destructive to the environment during the actual drilling process and produce many toxic byproducts. These very same by products have been directly contributing to greenhouse gases and global warming not to mention polluting our waterways and air.

Green energy, like solar, wind, and geothermal do not cause destruction to the environment either during their harvesting stage or as a byproduct. When you use solar cells for example to store and create energy, you’re using energy directly from the sun. There’s no by product create and no waste.

Benefits of Green Energy

The benefits of green energy are vast. Initially you may think about two primary environmental benefits. They include no waste or pollution from the energy sources or emissions. Eliminating harmful emissions would drastically improve our planet’s outlook and virtually eliminate global warming caused by greenhouse gasses.

Additionally, green energy means no more destruction of the earth as we harvest fossil fuels. No more oil spills, digging in the midst of our pristine wilderness and destroying our natural resources.

However, beyond the immediate and apparent environmental benefits, in the long run green energy is significantly more cost effective. Imagine if your entire home ran on energy from the sun? How much a month would that save you in heating your home and in your electric bill?

Over the course of a year you’d save a thousand dollars or more, right? What about over the course of ten years? Yes, initially it will cost to transfer your energy source from fossil fuels to green energy sources, but that initial expense is usually paid for within a few years.

Green energy is infinitely sustainable and economically sound. That’s why it is the wave of the future.

How to Use Green Energy

The good news is that green energy can be utilized in smaller increments. You don’t have to change your entire home over to sustainable fuel sources in one fell swoop. You can add a few solar panels, use passive solar, and support sustainable practices. Some energy companies even offer a membership where you can specify a certain amount of your energy come from wind or solar. This depends on where you live but check it out. Finally, you can support businesses that use green energy.

It may take a while to spread throughout the world, however green energy is more than a passing phase, it is the wave of the future.

Organic Chemical Free Gardening

Every year, thousand of chemicals are poured into the environment and millions of gallons of water are needlessly wasted. How? By growing plants. Sure, most of this is done by large agricultural producers, but some of it is still done in personal gardens. And that means that you can make a difference by changing your gardening practices. There are many agricultural producers who have done it, and you can use the same tricks to help your own garden, and the planet.

Pick appropriate plants.

Not all plants are appropriate for the area you live in. While you might be able to control the temperature, humidity, and rain conditions inside your house, you can’t do it out in the garden. If you pick appropriate plants for your area, you may be able to avoid using fertilizers and saving on water too. Research, what plants are native to your surrounding areas and try planting them in your own garden. Wildflowers, are just that, they can pretty much be left alone and will thrive in most areas.

Pick natural pest-repelling plants.

You don’t need to rely on poisons to keep away garden ruining pests. Many plants produce chemicals that repel these animals naturally. By putting them in or around you garden, you can keep your garden safe with little effort and no chemicals. Plus, you can pick parts of these plants and use them to make products to keep them away from you too.

If you don’t want to plant natural repellents in your garden, you can use them to spray your plants without harming them or adding artificial chemicals to your garden. Many herbs like hot pepper, vanilla, and lavender can help repel insects from your garden.

Weeding.

We’re all looking for a quick and easy way to safely get rid of weeds without chemicals, but the good old fashioned way is still very effective. It you take time every day to pull the weeds you can find, you’ll only take a few minutes so it doesn’t seem like a lot of work. You can even get the kids involved, just be sure to do it properly so you don’t spread the seeds around. There are even some common weeds that are edible, just make sure there are no pesticides that could have gotten on them.

Crop rotation.

Farmers all over the world use crop rotation to naturally fertilize plants. The concept is to change what crop you’re putting in a certain field each year. Plants use different nutrients and put other nutrients back into the soil. If you rotate crops that replace the nutrients the other plants use, you will have to fertilize the soil less.

You can use this same concept in your garden by planting different plants every year, or just rotating where you put specific plants in the garden.

So, you’ve made all these changes and are using a low-water, chemical free garden? Well, you still haven’t done the most important thing: pass it on! One garden can make a dent, but more can make a bigger difference. Tell your friends, teach your kids, you can even visit their school and teach your kids friends! Every little bit helps make a better world.

Easy Ways to Make your Home More Eco-Friendly

We all want to do our part to protect the environment, but without a large paycheck, that can be seem difficult, if not impossible. But doing your part doesn’t have to be hard. Small steps add up to a big difference, you just have to know which ones to take.

Use less water.

Saving water is all about small steps, here are a few that will help save big.

- Shut off the water while you brush your teeth
- Take showers that are a minute or two shorter
- Only flush the toilet when you need to
- Only run full loads of laundry and dishes
- Buy from sustainable producers. These are farmers, ranchers, and other producers that use techniques that pollute less and use less water. You can do some research online or ask at your local organic market to find these products.

Use less energy.

If you don’t have the money to buy a hybrid car or convert your house to solar power, you can make a big difference with small changes.

- Buy energy efficient appliances.  They may be more expensive, but make up for the increased cost in lower energy bills.
- Unplug chargers when you’re not using them.  Cell phone and other chargers use up power even if there’s nothing attached to them.
- Put devices with remotes, like T.V.s, VCRs, and stereos, on a power strip and turn it off when you’re not using them.  These devices use a lot of power to run the remote receiver even when the device is off.
- Walk or ride your bike for short trips.
-  Buy local products. It takes energy to transport food and other products across the country. Buying local not only supports your local economy, it helps them use less energy.

When it comes to saving energy and water, it’s a great idea to get the kids involved. You can even make it a game. Have them track how much water and electricity everyone is using. You can compete to see who uses the least water.  You can often count on your kids to help keep you on track when given the task.

Reuse.

Most of us know the three R’s: reduce, reuse, recycle, but when we work on conserving, we often leave reuse out of the picture. While you can often find tips on how to reuse common products from other people, what you need most is creativity. With a little thought there are many items around your home that can be reused – toilet paper holders can be used to sow seeds for the vegetable patch. And old yogurt containers can be cut into strips to make plant labels. Old food jars can be refilled with homemade foods or can make great impromptu vases.

Use environmentally friendly products.

When you go to the grocery store, you probably see more and more “natural” or “eco friendly” products every time.  There are generally two big problems with these products: Firstly, just because they’re more natural than regular products, doesn’t mean they’re entirely natural. And, secondly, they’re often expensive.

If you want inexpensive, natural, safe products, why not just make them yourself. Vinegar is a great way to clean and disinfect glass and other surfaces. Need to remove stubborn stains? Just add some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) to your vinegar cleaner. Some quick searching online will lead you to hundreds of other natural safe home-made cleaning products.

We all knowing that going green means better for the environment, but it’s also better for you.  Conserving resources also helps save you money, which is something most of us are happy to live with.