Detox Your House and Cosmetics! What do you do?

[FrankHomestead]

You are definitely on the right track. Keep it up.

Thank you!

 

[CapricornFarm]

I was thinking of making window box type things out of pallets to grow grass for the chickens. Put it in, grow more, when its empty, put in a fresh one. You could also grow clover or alfalfa.

 

[mobius]

I was thinking of making window box type things out of pallets to grow grass for the chickens. Put it in, grow more, when its empty, put in a fresh one. You could also grow clover or alfalfa.

Grass , barley, alfalfa, clover it is all good. When I did these for mine, they ran to check that out first thing in the morning as opposed to the fermented feed! Side note: My dogs love the barley too! More than the chickens!

 

[Ebarnes-21]

ACV ... now that's really easy. We make about 50 litres every year.

Pick masses of apples .... juice them. Any juicer will do, but a good one may cope with a good solid workout for those who have 10 apple trees producing at the same time every year.

Use the juice to 3/4 fill 30 litre brew barrels. Instead of the lids, cover them with a cloth tied on.

This is to stop the vinegar flies ... it doesn't work. But that's ok, a few vinegar flies will start your fermentation ... but you don't want masses of them drowning in your vinegar.

Leave it in a warm place until one day you wander past and catch a whiff of vinegar. About 3 months.

Siphon off into large (perhaps 1 gallon) bottles, leave to settle for a month or so, and decant into permanent bottles.

Next time you can use about a cup of your own vinegar to start it off ... it will make a better quality vinegar.

You can use a bought, live vinegar the first time ... but you don't have to, I've never bought a live vinegar at all actually.

The one thing is ... when you buy vinegar, this whole "It grow a mother" is great right? Well when you're making vinegar it is very annoying! That mother eats vinegar ... all that jelly stuff was once your vinegar ... and there's nothing so frustrating as a stringy blob of jelly landing in the middle of your salad!!

 

[mobius]

Yes yes good input for ACV! But I do strain my vinegar if I don't need the mother! Your points all good for folks who have all those great apples soon!

 

[igorsMistress]

Just a word of caution about essential oils. They can be very irritating to skin so please be careful about applying things without testing first.

 

[Ebarnes-21]

On the subject of anti-perspirants/deodorants ... well I rarely use it, being mild in that area, but during the summer, I use ACV!

Reasons ... a) we all know about commercial products, b) the 'salt' or 'crystal' deodorants are aluminium based! They say "Aluminium free" of course, and technically they can, because Aluminium is the term for the pure, metalic form of the element.

However the crystal deodorants are made of Alum salts, which is simply a water soluble chemical compound of aluminium.

Even if they weren't made of a toxic substance, I still wouldn't use them on a regular basis because they are an astringent, which is to say they contract the pores and stop perspiration, which under there is your body's detox process.

ACV is harmless, only very mild astringent, but it is an anti-bacterial, which stops the odor and bacteria.

 

[mobius]

nicely put about ACV as deodorant! will have to try it!

And with EOs I believe I have mostly said here to dilute with carrier oil....at bare minimum....

 

[Ebarnes-21]

On the subject of insect repellent, I make it by steeping random herbs like pennyroyal, rosemary etc in a light carrier oil.

Flyspray I absolutely won't have in the house. Its OK outside. Find a wasp nest in the polyhouse, fine, spray it. But not in my house air.

No herbicide is allowed in almost any area. Once every couple of years though we do roundup the driveway (300 metres of gravel drive and there's a species of grass here that runs).

 

[mobius]

Regular salt is good for grass in the driveway...and inexpensive