Hello and welcome to The Compost Bin. I'm Compostwoman and I live with my family in rural Herefordshire. We have nearly four acres of garden and woodland, all managed organically and to Permaculture principles, which we share with Chickens, Cats and assorted wildlife. We also grow a lot of our own food, run courses in all sorts of things and make a lot of compost!

I am a Master Composter and have spent more than a decade as a volunteer Community Compost adviser with Garden Organic and my local Council.
I'm a self employed Environmental Educator so I run workshops and events where I talk about compost, veg growing, chicken keeping, cooking, preserving and sustainable living. I also run crafts workshops and Forest School/outdoor play sessions in our wood.

We try to live a more self sufficient lifestyle here, as best we can, while still having a comfortable life and lots of fun.


To learn more about us click on the About Compostwoman tab and remember to click on the photos to make them full size!


Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts

Tuesday, 20 January 2015

A cleaning up day, with many uses for a bowl of bleach :)


I don't often use bleach ( not very environmentally friendly and not good in our septic tank in large quantities) so when I do have to make up a solution of it I tend to use it for as many different jobs as I possibly can.

Today I had some fabric for a craft project which needed lightening, so I made up a washing up bowl full of bleach and water. I left the cloths to soak for a bit until they were the shade I wanted.


I then used the bleach water to soak some tea discoloured tea towels, wash cloths and flannels before putting them in the wash.



As you may recall I use our double glazed porch as a greenhouse to start off plants for the polytunnel. I start sowing seeds on 2nd Feb ( Imbolc, or Candlemas if you are Christian) so I need to make sure the porch is nice and clean before I start.  This is my seed sowing area for early stuff and I need it to be absolutely spotless with no lingering mould spores, before I set up the heated propagators in there and get cracking on 2015 tomato, pepper, cucumber etc seed sowings.


So I then used the bowl of bleachy water to wash down the windows, window sills and walls in the porch. I then wiped the walls and windows clean with a cloth and clean water (important, otherwise the bleach dries and turns to salt on the walls, which will then provide a focus for damp to be absorbed - not good for walls!)



Compostman is going to re paint the removable bench, which lives in the porch during seed propagating season, so it is nice and clean looking and has a sealed surface. That way it won't get spoiled by water drips.

The porch looks a bit of a mess at the moment but at least it is nice and clean now :)


I then used the bleachy water to give all four of the heated propagators (bases and lids) a good clean and I also gave outer ceramic pots (used to hold house plants) and the old plant labels a good soak to make sure they, too are clean before use.

After that the water no longer smelt of bleach :) So I used it to clean the downstairs toilet then flushed it away

I also scrubbed a number of water holding trays clean with hot soapy water and lavender essential oil. That helped to hide the smell of bleach in the house a little!

Tomorrow I will have to put the porch back together again but for now it is drying and I feel pleased :)

Friday, 2 August 2013

A very clean thumbs up to Ecover.

















Just before Hampton Court Flower Show I was sent a sample of an Ecover gardening pack which contained Washing Up liquid, Biodegradable compost caddy bags and some Heavy Duty Hand Cleaner


I had a lot going on that week and someone put the items away for me and to be honest I forgot all about it until today, when I opened a cupboard and spotted the items looking at me


One of my regular weekend jobs is to empty out and clean the compost caddy  - we get through a lot of veg here and all the compostables go into this handy caddy we keep in the corner of the kitchen by the sink.

But it was rather smelly and full to overflowing  - we had started on a second container, there was no room for any more in the caddy!

So I decided to use my Ecover freebies to sort out the mess.

I emptied out the contents of the caddy into the Can O Worms and the Hungry Bin wormeries, which are going strong and are full of worms making lots of lovely vermicompost for me:)


and then gave the caddy a good scrub out with my Pomegranate and Lime washing up liquid and hot water - it smelt lovely after I had done.


I usually use the Co Op compostable shopping bags to line the caddy, but these Ecover ones are really good and very strong. I suspect I will get a number of uses from each liner.


Caddy clean and back in place.

After I had finished I needed to wash my hands and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get them clean looking. When I looked at them closely I could see that all those new potatoes, broad beans and tomatoes we are gathering from the garden have left my fingers stained yellow and black.

 


Now the Ecover hand cleaner scrub contains crushed coconut shells so I gave my fingers a scrub with it  and lo, they are now nice and clean and soft again :) I gave my hands  a treat of some rose and lavender hand cream to follow and tidied up my nails as well. No more rough skin snagging on my crochet wool now :).

Seriously, the Ecover compost bags are really really good and strong and a good size, the Hand scrubber really does work and the Washing up liquid does what it is supposed to and smells divine.

Yet again, thank you Ecover UK for sending me the items to try out; they get a (very clean!) thumbs up from me :)

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