House Cleaning All Natural!
Wildflower Farm Dish Soap
The sunlight spills in to spite the cloudiness of the sky in the kitchen today. All kinds of fun and interesting things happen in the Wildflower kitchen. Things get canned, dehydrated, created….. Potted……… eaten, thrown out, put away, cleaned, put away, etc…. I like to say that the kitchen is the only place even more full of life than the gardens.Right now, we are making a concerted effort to cut down substantially on 2 things. Plastic waste, and fossil fuels. One way I have chosen to do that is by producing my own cleaning supplies and adding even more life and activity to the kitchen.
I have switched us to something called Soap Nuts. I have found the reports about them are not always so true…. As it pertains to how well they work. Which isn’t to say they don’t work. Does that mean you can’t re-use them? Depends how you have used them in the past. If just tossed in the laundry you can easily get 3-4 washes out of each collection of 12 to 15 soap nuts. However, if you do what I am doing with them now when finished take them out and just dump them in the gardens from the muslin bag then throw the bag in the laundry. So the claims of 6-10 washes and such that is fiction. But 3 or 4 is definitely true. And given what they cost, I am definitely saving money by using them instead of a detergent… Just not the massive savings that were presented. About half that. Which for us is just fine. But I like to be full complete and honest about our materials here. This isn’t to say soap nuts are bad. They are very very very good! Just not as good as some presentations I have now seen would have everyone believe….
Anyway, one thing I had planned to have up by now was something on producing homemade apple scrap vinegar at home. Something I do regularly, as it is fabulous to help with cleaning and with the animals added to their water as a natural wormer. But unfortunately I am so behind right now I have not yet got that up yet. But I promise I will get it up as soon as I have some more time.
To make Wildflower Farm Dish Soap, you will need, 20-30 soap nuts, 1 and a 1/4 cup vinegar, 2-3 cups water, and the juice of 1 lemon, FOOD GRADE orange essential oil for fragrance. Pour it all in a pot, and boil. If you put the soap nuts in without a muslin bag, or if you got lemon seeds in it, you will have to strain it after you pop the pot on the stove and boil it for 15-30 minutes, mixing it periodically. Take it off the heat, allow it to cool and then it’s time to strain it as you pour it into a glass jar container which you can set out by the sink, or keep some stored for next time in a glass jar in the fridge.
This stuff works great. No complaints, I use this stuff in many ways…. I even throw a half cup in with a bag of soap nuts I toss in my laundry, hang dry, bring in, put in drier for 15 minutes to lose stiffness from hang drying, toss in reusable drier balls with a few drops of the essential oil of your choice, run and done, fold and put away. Super happy with it. I hope it works in your home as well as mine. Now, I have some dead soap nuts to empty outside in the garden.
For me what is nicest is there is so little waste. No plastic to end up in a landfill, no fossil fuels involved in production or really transportation as almost everything is made at home. And when soap nuts break down, just scrape them out of muslin bag into the garden, reuse glass containers!!! It really is perfect and though it does not produce much in the way of suds, it works great.
Thank you for reading.
I will try to do better by making time to blog more often… Just so busy lately….
Amanda Of Wildflower Farm
Tags: ag, agriculture, agro, airbnb, apple scrap vinegar, B&B, Central MA, eco friendly, environmentalism, farm, farm stay, farm wife, farm wife blog, farmer, farming, farmstead, fossil fuel free cleaner, homemade cleaners, homemade cleanser, homemade dish soap, homesmade laundry detergent, homestead, homestead blog, homestead cleaning supplies, homestead farm, homestead wife, homestead wife blog, homesteader, homesteading, house hold cleaner recipe, housewife, housewife blog, innkeeper, Innkeeper's blog, lodging, new england homestead, new england homesteading, plastic free dish soap, plastic free laundry detergent, self sufficiency, self sufficient eco friendly no plastic or fossil fuels homestead cleaner, self sufficient housewife, self sufficient housewife blog, simple household cleaner, simple living, simpler way of life, soap nuts, travel, wildflower farm
Wildflower Farm, is a small New England homestead, B&B and AirBnB, in the Baystate. We came out here 7 years ago, when we returned from the better part of 10 years as peripatetic aristotelian nomads, for my husband's post docs. Upon our return, we had a plan. We had a lovely home. Everything was so clear. Then, I got sick. Things I used to eat all the time during our travels elsewhere in the world and even here before I left almost 10 years earlier made me ill. It took a couple trips to the ER and a trip to specialist... It became clear, something had changed in the way food is processed in this country since last I lived here. Some off label things was inevitably going to be my demise.
My husband and I looked around to see the clear path we were on, had exploded in front of us. We decided we had to create a new path for ourselves. We put children on hold. We found a small piece of land with a house we loved in a rural suburb in a right to farm area. I began researching how to do it ourselves. Grow it ourselves, make it ourselves, survive on our own as much as possible. We bought the property, and began plotting a new course. One that didn't involve off label chemicals. Closer to nature, with a lot more DIY, gardens, and animals for the products they provide. We created a life we loved though it hasn't always been easy and has of course come with compromise with each other, and even with ourselves.
Our family thought we had lost our minds. What were we doing leaving the city? We had no idea how hard this would be. They thought we would be back in 6 months. That was over 7 years ago, now. We have been making it work. They were not wrong, it isn't easy. But has anything worth doing ever been easy? And for us, avoiding as much store bought food as possible was simply necessary so I could live given how sick I was getting.
Then Covid hit.... We were lucky to have this place. It has allowed us a lot less need for public use territories which has kept us a lot safer and spared us much of the risk others face daily. This place, has given us a privilege through this of great meaning to us. To be of use in a difficult time. We have been able to help friends family and even strangers in need when things couldn't be found on store shelves. Or money was tight due to not working, rent being due and a child at home, or some other draining situation. We are so very grateful to have been able to not be helpless like so much of society through this miserable time. Our families, got used to it some time ago, us being out here. They made peace with it the day there was no bread and they had to ask me for some. Or when fresh vegies were rotten due to supply chain issues but they could find plenty in my garden.
Wildflower Farm, was a place I dreamed of. One of those sweet pastoral dreams a city dweller grows up knowing will never come true, that became unavoidable when I became ill. I never expected to get to do this. I never thought I had what it takes to make this work. I have learned pacing myself is important, compromise is critical, hard work never ends, burn out is real so breaks are just a necessary evil.
We are not fully self sufficient, but we work hard in that direction as we create a new path through life for ourselves, always reaching to do even more ourselves and to get closer to the ideal we envision. We are however far more self sufficient than many in this world. 7 years in, we continue to learn and grow in this homesteading lifestyle. We welcome comments and advice and ideas and questions.
We welcome visitors from all over to our home with strict covid policies in place. We spend our time learning to live all over again in a more environmental and sustainable way though even there we are far from perfect always learning and growing doing better as we know better.
This little homestead farm is a magical place named for the New England wildflowers that grow all around. A place where a physicist, watches the night sky on clear nights with the aide of mirror and glass, and a woman, works endlessly in the gardens, the kitchen, and a variety of projects to create and to keep a very unique life style running and functioning. Wildflower Farm, has become so much more than simply a piece of land we can grow a few vegetables on. The longer I spend here, the more alive the land seems, the more I learn about it's function and the more meaning it has. My place in the universe and the next steps on our new path become ever more clear.
We welcome you on this journey with us.
Add Comment