I discovered this out of laziness
I hate taking the sticky labels off jars and get very impatient with the remaining glue. This morning I filled a basin with hot water and a tablespoon of ordinary washing powder (for clothes). After an hour or so the labels peeled off easily and the glue was rubbed off quickly with a non stick scourer. Whey hey.
This is one of Fiona's mum's tips:
Cleaning roasting trays or saucepans with gooey gunk burnt on at the base:
lPace the object on your stove top. On one ring for a pan or straddling two rings for a roasting tray.
Pour in two inches (5 cm) of water. Add approx 1 tbsp of washing powder (laundry soap).
Switch on the stove rings really low - like ours go from 1 to 9 so we use 1.
Leave for several hours, checking the water level occasionally. Add more water if the fluid is running dry.
This is a magical cure.
Never knowingly underfed
But how do you get the slug slime off the pot?http://www.cottagesmallholder.com/wp-content/forum...../', '', '1');" src="../../wp-content/forum-smileys/sf-smile.gif" alt="Smile" />
Kateuk makes things at http://www.etsy.com/shop/finkstuff and sometimes she does this too http://www54paintings.blogspot.com/ and also this http://finkstuff.weebly.com/
Thinking about Fiona's thread on Companion planting it occurs to me that one of the important aspects of increasing self-sufficiency is to maximise the resources that we already have.
It's obvious, I suppose, but increasing yield at whatever you do is a cornerstone. And knowledge is a key to opening the door on improvements. If my dad had access 40 years ago to the amount and quality of information that is available free of charge on the Internet, I have no doubt that he would have at least doubled his yield from our five acres.
That must apply to other aspects of increasing one's productivity. None spring to mind at the moment but we will come back to this.
Never knowingly underfed
Save yourself squashed bread and the likes by using one of those handy bottle bags that you can buy in the supermarket to carry 6 bottles of wine.. Use this to pack 12 cans of food instead.
Instead of using cling film, ask people to take the shower caps when in hotels. these can be used for anything from a bowl to a plate cover, mini proporgater. Then turn inside out wash it and dry on mug tree or rack.
stop wasting flour when dredging meat for casseroles etc. instead of using a plate as when on tv chef programmes. using an old jar, drill holes in the lid like a flour or sugar duster. save 2 jars the same. you need the 2 lids. drill one with the holes and keep the other intact. season your flour like normal. use the drilled hole lid to dust your meat. less waste for sure and use the complete lid with no holes to store the seasoned flour in.
an olde but a goody keep jam jars to add tealights to. to light paths and make twinkle lights in.
plastic boxes tupperware, if the are no longer fit for food containers - if they have seen better days, screw and raw plugs can live in them. If not that then drill holes in it and use it as a seed tray. you can also do this with yoghurt pots.
table cloth got spots on it, if it is white, use tippex on it, if not time to wash it. If it is good enough for the QE2 then it is good enough for me. No table cloth? Use a flat sheet from a bed. obviously a clean one.
use socks that have seen better days to clean all those areas you just cant do with a normal cloth. Put in on your hand, run your hand up the bannister, and a round the spindles as you go up the stairs. turn it around and then on the way back down from the loo or what ever, use the other side to do the skirting board on the stairs on the way down. (I have a large plant at the top of my stairs, my sock lives in the corner behind the pot). This can also be used to clean venitian blinds I am so not paying for one of the things that has sponges on it and looks like it is some tongs. Just use a sock on your hand and use your thumb and index finger to either side of the slat. Also if it is a cheaper blind like and ikea metal on like we have, you wont damage the slats like my friend did you had the sponged tongs. as with your fingers are more gentle.
the cheapest cola down the loo really does work. Thanks kim and aggy. Flush the loo and hold the ball cock up. then flush again so no water comes out. 2 bottles of cola down the toilet and leave there for as long as possible cleans and gets ride of lime scale.
another kim and Aggy, marks in the bath from rugby playing other halves or children, fill the bath with hot water, swish in lots of biological washing powder. leave over night, pull plug swish a round with shower head or water in a jug, no scrubbing or the risk of scratching the bath. and the grit just flows down the drain
I think that is enough for tonight,
You can try, but frankly, I have found that nothing short of genocide deters the really determined snail or slug.
Kateuk makes things at http://www.etsy.com/shop/finkstuff and sometimes she does this too http://www54paintings.blogspot.com/ and also this http://finkstuff.weebly.com/
The best piece of advice I ever read which I haven't tried yet (we are so blessed here in Latvia we haven't got a slug problem, snails sometimes but few slugs, at least in our garden) is to put a piece of board down on the ground overnight, then in the morning lift it and manually destroy them. It is based on the fact they always seem to be found under rocks and wood during the day.
Absolutely- they also like overturned empty flower pots or halved orange/grapefruit skins. Gritty surfaces are supposed to put them off, but there needs to be a LOT of grit to make it not worth their while to cross the barrier. We had lots of slugs in our garden in Holland, where the soil was mostly sand so in theory they wouldn't like it. The slugs and snails just produced incredibly thick slime to compensate for the grittiness. yuk!
Kateuk makes things at http://www.etsy.com/shop/finkstuff and sometimes she does this too http://www54paintings.blogspot.com/ and also this http://finkstuff.weebly.com/
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