Green Cleaning - Getting Started

Green Bubbles from brhefele

I've recently become pretty enamoured with the whole green-cleaning movement, and have thrown myself headlong into learning all there is about cleaning sans chemicals.

It's been really interesting, and aside from an unfortunate smelling homemade laundry powder (which I will use up, begrudgingly) I've been stoked with the results.

I'm keen to share a few of my favourite recipes today, and can keep adding them if folks are interested.

Getting Started

 
Before you start, there are a few items and products that are pretty important to have at home, otherwise you'll feel like it's a huge chore to go out and buy them as you come across the need. The key things you'll need to begin:

• A collection of spray/spritz/squirt bottles (I bought half a dozen from the Reject Shop for $2 each and that's been plenty for me. I have some recipes made up all the time while others are just a one-off use).
• Old tea-towels or cloth nappies for wiping down surfaces
• Various sponges, Chux wipes etc
• Empty jars or takeaway containers to store made-up formulas

• Baking soda (known as bi-carb soda here in Australia)
• A good quality, genuine castile soap. You can either get a hard bar and grate it up where needed or a liquid version. I use Dr Bronners Liquid Castile in Lavender (naturally) and Orange Citrus. Castile soap is supremely gentle on your skin but still quite concentrated and a really effective cleaner. I'll put together a post on how much I love the stuff shortly.
• Borax - a natural mineral found in powdered form in your laundry aisle
• Washing soda - also in your laundry aisle
• Vinegar (white vinegar is fine, or cleaning vinegar)
• Tea tree oil

To get through a typical cleaning week, these are the formula I need, and for a less frequent clean (the oven for example) I just make the relevant formula up when I need it:

         All purpose spray cleaner
         Tea tree oil spray (Water and 10 drops tea tree oil)
         Vinegar/Water Spray (1:4)
         Straight Vinegar

ALL-PURPOSE SPRAY CLEANER

I use this recipe to clean kitchen and bathroom benchtops and cupboards, the outside of the microwave, fridge and oven and the wall tiles when they only need a light clean. It's fairly mild, but I find that because I wipe down the kitchen bench after use that there's never a huge scungy later of grease to remove. If you're after something to remove that, then vinegar and water (one part vinegar to three parts water) in a spray bottle will help, or the Kitchen Scouring Paste (2 tbsp vinegar, 3 tbsp baking soda combined).

     1/2 tsp washing soda
     1 tsp borax
     1/2 tsp castile soap
     2 tbsp vinegar
     2 cups hot water

Combine all ingredients in a spray bottle and shake well until solid bits have dissolved. Spray surfaces and wipe clean with a damp cloth or sponge.

TOILET CLEANER - easy as!

     1/2cup borax
     Vinegar

Sprinkle inside toilet bowl liberally with borax and spray with straight vinegar until thoroughly wet. Leave on for 30 minutes. Use a scrubbing brush as normal and flush.

I usually then clean the toilet suite with the All Purpose Spray Cleaner. Comes up a treat, every time.

There are recipes for more stubborn stains, but I can't recommend them as I've never had to try. If I do I'll be sure to tell you about it.

OTHER TIPS:

To clean mirrors, windows and shower screens I use the vinegar/water spray. Spray the glass and wipe well with newspaper. Sparkly McGee!

I also use the same vinegar/water spray on tiles in the bathroom and kitchen if they need a good clean. Spray, leave, rinse and wipe dry.

Straight vinegar sprayed into the bath or shower and left for 10 minutes is the best way to get rid of soap build-up or a bath ring. Just spray, leave for 10, wipe/scrub with a sponge, rinse and wipe down.

Tea tree oil spray is used on high rotation in our house. It's an awesome bactericide, smells lovely and is gentle enough to use on almost everything. I use it for:

• A super excellent nappy spray. (I spray Isy's used nappies and pop them in a dry bucket until washing time)
• Spray down bathroom tiles after cleaning, leave for 10 minutes, then wipe dry. This stops mould/mildew build-up. Keeps the tiles cleaner too.
• Spray on washed shower curtains to stop mould/mildew.
• Fabulous deoderiser

I also use green cleaners in the laundry, the rest of the kitchen and around the house, but I'll save them for another post (or seven.)

Brooke, the cleaning nerd.
xx

Bakey McBakerson

I think part of my current addiction to all things baking-related is also pregnancy-related (when I was pregnant with Isla I baked constantly. Something about nurturing maybe?) but not entirely.

Yes, I still bake sweet things (current favourites of the house: date loaf, date scones, muesli bars, apple and rhubarb crumble) but I've also started baking our own bread. I hope that we can stop buying shop bread altogether shortly, as I'm definitely getting better and faster at making it, and I hate the thought of the preservatives/sugar/salt/etc in even "premium" commercial bread. (The local bakehouse is organic, but expensive too, so that's a no to Mr Organic Sourdough).

Anyway, today I made my first loaf using a new recipe, and it was freaking delicious. Like that kind of delicious that will ruin all other breads eaten hereafter. It's just a basic white loaf, so not great on the GI scale, although I plan on trying it as wholemeal, and maybe adding some seeds to it next time. Chia seeds are reportedly awesome for you, so maybe some of those?

White bread image from here. Because mine was butt-ugly.

Anyway, here's the recipe, as taken from Taste. Written by Anneka Manning (1998) and adapted based on users comments.

PREPARATION: 20min

COOKING: 20-30min

MAKES: 12 slices-ish

INGREDIENTS:

• Melted butter, for greasing and brushing
• 500g (3 1/3 cups) plain flour
• 2 tsp (7g/1 sachet) dried yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 375mls (1 1/2 cups) lukewarm water
• Extra water, for brushing
• 1 tsp poppy seeds, for sprinkling

METHOD:

1. Brush a 10 x 20cm (base measurement) loaf pan with the melted butter to lightly grease.
2. Place the plain flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl and mix well to combine. Make a well in the centre and add the water to the dry ingredients. The water needs to be lukewarm - if the water is too hot, it can kill the yeast.
3. Use a wooden spoon to stir until combined and then use your hands to bring the dough together in the bowl.
4. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes or until smooth and elastic. (The best way to knead is to use the heel of your hand to push the dough away from you and then lift it with your fingertips and fold it over itself towards you. Turn the dough a quarter turn and repeat.) You can tell when the dough has been kneaded enough by pressing your finger into the surface of the dough - if it springs back, it has been kneaded sufficiently. If the dough hasn't been kneaded enough, the resulting bread will have a holey, crumbly texture and poor structure.
5. Shape the dough into a ball. Brush a large bowl with the melted butter to grease. Place the dough into the bowl and turn it over to lightly coat the dough surface with the butter. This will stop the surface of the dough drying out as it stands, which can affect the rising process. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and then place it in a warm, draught-free place to allow the dough to rise. The ideal temperature for rising bread dough is around 30°C.
6. Leave the dough in this spot until it is double its size. This quantity of bread dough should take between 45-75 minutes to double in size. When the dough is ready, it will retaining a finger imprint when lightly pressed. If left to rise for too long, the bread texture will be uneven and have large holes. If not left for long enough, it will have a heavy, dense texture.
7. Once the dough has doubled in size. Punch it down in the centre with your fist.
8. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead again for 2-3 minutes or until smooth and elastic and returned to its original size.
9. Preheat oven to 200°C.
10. Divide the dough into 2 equal portions and shape each into a smooth round. Place the portions of dough side by side in the greased loaf pan. Brush lightly with the melted butter. Stand the pan in a warm, draught-free place, as before, for about 30 minutes or until the dough has risen about 1cm above the top of the pan.
11. Gently brush the loaf with a little water and then sprinkle with the poppy seeds. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes or until golden and cooked through. The best way to tell when the loaf of bread is cooked is to tap it on the base with your knuckle - if it sounds hollow, it is cooked.
12. Turn the loaf immediately onto a wire rack and allow to cool. If left in the pan, the loaf will sweat and the crust will become soft.
13. 
    
    Once cool, store the loaf in a well-ventilated place at room temperature. This bread is best eaten on the day it is made. However, it makes great toast 1-2 days later. Make any stale leftovers into breadcrumbs and freeze in a sealed freezer bag to have on hand for later use.

I just ate some of this loaf with mashed avocado, salt and pepper for lunch, and it was genuinely delish. Hope you enjoy. 

x

Things I Have Done

When I started thinking about living life more lavender (twee alert!), I was overwhelmed with how much I could do. In fact, I was so overwhelmed that I did nothing instead. Information overload and all that.

It wasn't until I re-read A Slice of Organic Life that I started to think in small chunks. And those chunks were things I could actually manage.

True to form, I still ended up getting way over-excited and decided I would become the permaculture-organic-make-or-grow-everything-myself Queen. But I have since settled back down and decided that any improvements we make are still improvements, and besides, I can't sew to save my life so there is no way I could possibly make everything.

The best way for me to tackle information-overload-induced procrastination is by doing one thing at a time. So weekly, or more regualrly perhaps, I'll provide a post with a you-can-do-it-now tip. Sometimes they'll be big, sometimes they'll be small, but you can almost always do it now and improve your LQ (Lavender Quotient).

So if you're looking for one thing you can do right now to improve your LQ, make it this:

Check out what you can and can't recycle 
in your local council area. 

Recycling Near You is such a cool, simple concept (Sorry, this one is Australia only at this stage). Just pop your postcode in and it tells you straight away info like what you can/can't recycle in your council bins, what your hard rubbish nights are, links to council documents, etc.

Mobius Symbol. From Bless Designs.

Again, I'm in danger of exposing what an enormous dork I am, but I was so excited to get a definitive answer to the question of what exactly I can recycle. I was so stoked to find out that any plastics from the laundry, kitchen and bathroom can be recycled by my council (sans lids and not including clingwrap) as well as the fact that the envelopes I receive on a daily basis with the plastic windows can also be chucked in with the recyclables. We can recycle al-foil here so I now use that and baking paper rather than clingwrap, and not that we order take-away very often but when we do, the plastic boxes can all go too. Score one for the nerds!

So that is one thing you can do this week that will actually make a difference. And I started paying so much more attention to what was going into our rubbish bin as a result, which has meant we now only fill our regular rubbish bin to about 1/4 of its capacity. Our recycling bin is always full though. Happy days.

Why?

So, a little bit of background and some understanding as to what this is all about:

I'm a stay at home mum of one very active and hilarious 18-month-old girl, with another bub on the way (due beginning December). My husband Sparky, Isy and myself live in a teeny tiny house in the Blue Mountains, about an hour out of Sydney.

An embarassingly old shot of us. (I'm a bit camera-shy.)

We're smack-bang in the middle of organising major renovations and an extension to our 1950s fibro cottage, and hope to start construction within the next 4 weeks. We hope (optimistically) to be finished the majority of the construction before baby #2 arrives in late November/early December.

I am a complete garden nerd. I love gardening magazines, shows, blogs, forums etc, and often find my bedtime reading consists of Organic Gardener or one of my numerous vegetable gardening books.  I have to admit, as excited as I am about the upcoming works on our house, I am a tiny bit more pumped at the idea of finally bringing to life my plans for a big vege garden and small orchard in our backyard and seeing just how much we can live off our little patch of land.

I used to own and run an independent jewellery label, Trove, but decided to close the doors earlier this year. (I am currently in the process of selling the last few hundred pieces, so do check it out if you are interested - the prices are pretty damn good.) After three years of building the business up - I had 40+ hand-selected stockists world-wide, showed my collections at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week and was on the verge of hiring permanent staff - I suffered major burn-out. I was trying to be an excellent full-time Mum to a very active, not-very-sleepy toddler, trying to run a busy jewellery label and trying to make every individual piece I sold (all production was down to me too) and it took its toll on me emotionally and physically.

As a result of the turmoil and angst we felt earlier this year, I started thinking about living more simply. Sounds twee, I know, but I can really see and really understand the value in living a life well, living a life wholly and living a life simply and naturally. And that's really where this journey, the Lavender Experiment, really begins.

I want to document the things I do (successfully and unsuccessfully) in trying to live life more simply and more naturally. I'm also keen on sharing the renovation process as it goes along, the garden's construction and other things that pique my interest along the way.

Hopefully you'll find it interesting. I know I will!

Brooke x

The Who in the What Now?

Welcome to The Lavender Experiment.


I mother, I wife, I cook, I clean, I bake and I plan renovations. I garden, I read, I project-manage said renovations. I budget, I shop, I grow handmade businesses up, I burn myself out when they become successful, I close them down. I also blog.


My name is Brooke and I'll be your host on this journey into the simpler life. Let me also be your cautionary tale. For "simpler" is in the eye of the beholder.