Tips and tricks for home, garden and nature

[INTP]

I thought i would make a topic where you girls(and guys?) can share some tips and tricks regarding to home, food, garden or what ever appropriate for this subforum.


Ill start with this home fragrance thing i came up with some time ago:

Instruction:

1: Get a plate
2: Place a cotton ball on it
3: Put some drops of essential oil on it(i like orange, orange flower or neroli which basically as far as i remember is just orange flower of some certain strain of orange grown mostly for this sort of stuff). How many obviously depends on how strong smell you want, what essential oil you use and how strong that oil is.
4: Place the plate(s) somewhere in your apartment

Words of caution: Some essential oils might cause irritation to you or pets. So check the properties of the oil you are planning to use and keep in mind that some oils might cause irritation to your pets even tho it may be safe for humans. I wouldnt recommend using any in large amounts(as in many of these all over the house with dripping wet cotton ball) if you have pets.

It will surely be better than any of those (nasty chemical smelling)home fragrances you buy from supermarkets and will be cheaper in the long run.

Personally i only tested with orange and orange flower oils and they seem to last quite a long time and you can easily add few drops to make it smell and moist again.

 

[Chthonic]

Oh! I'm in.

Bury your food scraps under mulch. I did this and now have two Japanese pumpkin vines growing nicely in my yard.

 

[Codex]

Love this thread already!

 

[kyuuei]

Leaves make the best compost you can ever ask for in your garden. Just use one of those horrible leaf blowers with the shredder attachment, shred them into a bag, and pile them up high in a pile and let them bake all spring, summer, and fall without disturbing them. Come 1 year later, scrape the top leaves off and the dirt underneath is actually far easier to make and better than just hippy composting scraps thrown into an expensive composting bin.

Worms do better for people food--or another animal that eats scraps. Pigs or worms are easier to care for, don't care if it's 'red' 'green' or 'brown', the ratios are easier to figure out, and they eat almost anything. Worms are cheap and the bins to make for them are free or just as cheap. They process compost faster and safer than any of the balancing acts needed for compost bins. If you're looking for practicality, not having to think 'oh, will this be able to go in?' is a lot easier and better for the average joe trying to do better for the landfills.

The trick to good potting soil is variety. The forest naturally gets that variety from animals and the plants themselves as well as fungus. You'll get two out of those three with the leaves, worms will give you the nutrient density of the people-food-side of things. Mix a bit together with some ashes from a fireplace (plants love ashes and winter time people burn it like crazy) and you've got a better recipe for a garden than you could buy at a store.

BTW, Fig trees looove ashes. If you're feeling down about a fig tree not blossoming, they take years to start producing fruit (like almost any other annoying fruit tree) but if you throw your ashes along their roots all winter they love it.

 

[prplchknz]

Leaves make the best compost you can ever ask for in your garden. Just use one of those horrible leaf blowers with the shredder attachment, shred them into a bag, and pile them up high in a pile and let them bake all spring, summer, and fall without disturbing them. Come 1 year later, scrape the top leaves off and the dirt underneath is actually far easier to make and better than just hippy composting scraps thrown into an expensive composting bin.

Worms do better for people food--or another animal that eats scraps. Pigs or worms are easier to care for, don't care if it's 'red' 'green' or 'brown', the ratios are easier to figure out, and they eat almost anything. Worms are cheap and the bins to make for them are free or just as cheap. They process compost faster and safer than any of the balancing acts needed for compost bins. If you're looking for practicality, not having to think 'oh, will this be able to go in?' is a lot easier and better for the average joe trying to do better for the landfills.

The trick to good potting soil is variety. The forest naturally gets that variety from animals and the plants themselves as well as fungus. You'll get two out of those three with the leaves, worms will give you the nutrient density of the people-food-side of things. Mix a bit together with some ashes from a fireplace (plants love ashes and winter time people burn it like crazy) and you've got a better recipe for a garden than you could buy at a store.

BTW, Fig trees looove ashes. If you're feeling down about a fig tree not blossoming, they take years to start producing fruit (like almost any other annoying fruit tree) but if you throw your ashes along their roots all winter they love it.

do the ashes of love ones work the best? since they're spirit can talk to the tree and tell the tree how awesome you are and that it would mean the world if they'd hurry up and produce figs?

 

[gromit]

Get rid of everything you don't need, use, or LOVE.


My parents are a bit hoard-y so I had to learn that one as an adult. So much easier to keep fewer things tidy than many things.

If things are getting messy, it's not time to reorganize, it's time to get rid of stuff.

Then you can organize.

 

[INTP]

Get rid of everything you don't need, use, or LOVE.

But i might some day need the small motor i salvaged from a toy car as a kid

 

[prplchknz]

Get rid of everything you don't need, use, or LOVE.


My parents are a bit hoard-y so I had to learn that one as an adult. So much easier to keep fewer things tidy than many things.

If things are getting messy, it's not time to reorganize, it's time to get rid of stuff.

Then you can organize.

my mom uses this philosphy and everytime i needed something she threw out what i needed a week previous. so don't listen to this advice

 

[gromit]

Haha. Yeah I'm talking about when you have more stuff than space to keep it.

I personally prefer to err on getting rid of a lot of small and cheap things (and MAYBE needing one or two of them later) than hanging onto all this junk (and MAYBE needing one or two items later).

 

[prplchknz]

Haha. Yeah I'm talking about when you have more stuff than space to keep it.

I personally prefer to err on getting rid of a lot of small and cheap things (and MAYBE needing one or two of them later) than hanging onto all this junk (and MAYBE needing one or two items later).

I think it was a sash i needed

 

[Chthonic]

Coffee grounds are not only crack for earth worms and draw them from afar (high carbon content). But they also blend perfectly with your garden soil. Dump at will your plants will thank you for it.

 

[prplchknz]

haven't tried these but we always did store shredded cheese in the freezer, and my mom does the milk thing, I don't drink milk so i don't even keep it in my fridge

 

[grey_beard]

Coffee grounds are not only crack for earth worms and draw them from afar (high carbon content). But they also blend perfectly with your garden soil. Dump at will your plants will thank you for it.

As an added bonus, if you own fruit trees, try putting the coffee grounds into the soil as the fruit ripens. When the trees get their caffeine buzz and begin shaking, the vibrations will drop the fruit right on the ground, so you don't have to climb up and pick it!

Seriously, never heard this. I wonder if it would work for people looking for night crawlers to go fishing with /days of yore>.

 

[Chthonic]

Seriously, never heard this. I wonder if it would work for people looking for night crawlers to go fishing with /days of yore>.

Possibly if you have a worm farm and are breeding them. Worms love carbon, that's why they flock to rotting carboard and will eat egg cartons too. Coffee grounds are mostly carbon. If you're looking for fishing bait, lay some cardboard on bare earth, keep it moist and after a few days if you lift it up, worm city.

I just starting brewing kombucha tea again. The downside is the damn alien things reproduce every batch. What the hell do you do with a load weird pancakes that look like they might jump on your face in the night and lay eggs in your stomach? Apparently you pop them in the blender, add to your watering can and dump them on your garden as fertiliser. Whole lot better idea to me than making.....kombucha jerky out of them.

 

[sprinkles]

Use small pet cages with the bottom taken off to protect small potted plants from accidents in a busy yard.

I had to do this for my bonsai to protect it from basketballs and dogs and the neighbor kids. I took a rabbit cage and removed the bottom and wired it to my table with my bonsai inside. The cage has a white rustproofing on it so it isn't too ugly and my little tree is protected and still gets the right amount of sun and rain. I hate to have it in a cage but they destroyed my potted moss gardens I was growing so there was no way I'd let that happen to my baby bonsai.

 

[INTP]

I just starting brewing kombucha tea again. The downside is the damn alien things reproduce every batch. What the hell do you do with a load weird pancakes that look like they might jump on your face in the night and lay eggs in your stomach? Apparently you pop them in the blender, add to your watering can and dump them on your garden as fertiliser. Whole lot better idea to me than making.....kombucha jerky out of them.

Wait what? I thought that the slimy pancake parts were the things that you were trying to grow and what kombucha is made out of, i mean that is the "mushroom". I remember seeing some documentary about kombucha years ago when it wasnt popular yet, i think it was one of the first people who grew it commercially in usa and those slime pancakes were what they tried to get and what they sent to people so that they could grow their own.

 

[Chthonic]

Yeah the pancake is what makes the drink, but it's the liquid you consume. You need a mother to brew but they are long lived and every new batch of brew gives birth to another one. Before long you have 6 of the things in your brewing jar. They only die once in a while but they multiply every 2 weeks. I've been reading all the interesting things people do with their excess mothers. I don't fancy chopping one up and sticking it in my stirfry... It's bad enough that the one I have is creating CO2 like no-ones business and it gives the impression it's climbing out of the jar and moving around. They are quite gross to look at.

But I do like the kombucha fizzy drink, so I have to pretend I don't have a lab experiment in my kitchen. I can't wait to go for second ferment, I've raspberries and ginger waiting to flavour it. So far it took 5 days to grow a mother from a commercial bottle of the tea. I then put that into a larger jar 2 days ago and it's already spawned a second larger one. I think my primary brew will be ready in 5 days (it's hot here at the moment), then you add flavours to it, second ferment another 2-3 days and you have fizzy drink with probiotics and very small amounts of sugar. Tastes a bit tart but I love the stuff.

 

[INTP]

Yeah the pancake is what makes the drink, but it's the liquid you consume. You need a mother to brew but they are long lived and every new batch of brew gives birth to another one. Before long you have 6 of the things in your brewing jar. They only die once in a while but they multiply every 2 weeks. I've been reading all the interesting things people do with their excess mothers. I don't fancy chopping one up and sticking it in my stirfry... It's bad enough that the one I have is creating CO2 like no-ones business and it gives the impression it's climbing out of the jar and moving around. They are quite gross to look at.

But I do like the kombucha fizzy drink, so I have to pretend I don't have a lab experiment in my kitchen. I can't wait to go for second ferment, I've raspberries and ginger waiting to flavour it. So far it took 5 days to grow a mother from a commercial bottle of the tea. I then put that into a larger jar 2 days ago and it's already spawned a second larger one. I think my primary brew will be ready in 5 days (it's hot here at the moment), then you add flavours to it, second ferment another 2-3 days and you have fizzy drink with probiotics and very small amounts of sugar. Tastes a bit tart but I love the stuff.

Okay, but just so that you know:

 

[linear_ringlets]

For gardening, save your eggshells. Collect a few of them before they dry out too much after cracking eggs, and crush them into irregular pieces. Sprinkle them along your greens-- like lettuce, cabbage, etc. It'll add calcium to the soil and prevents worms from traveling around and eating!

FYI: Pay attention to the little critters eating your greens. Sometimes, they might be butterflies in baby form. Identify them carefully.

 

[LonestarCowgirl]

My neighbor says I have a green thumb. For stronger plants and vibrant color, my secret is epsom salt (magnesium sulfate). Don't be shy, spread it generously around the base of plants and water in. Your garden will grow and your blooms will be gorgeous. In the spring, I do that weekly. I also mix some in a water bottle and spray on foliage in the evening.