On the Safety of Cleaning Products

May 15, 2019

...cleaning products consist of detergents that lower the surface tension of water and/or acids or bases that dissolve calcium and fatty substances. Some acids act as disinfectants and bases also inhibit the corrosion of metal. Solvents (such as alcohol) also dissolve fatty substances. Other chemicals are added to cleaning products such as water softeners, to help dissolve certain minerals, as well as fragrances and preservatives. Commercial cleanin...

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Timing Sourdough Feeding

Mr. Homegrown

April 6, 2020

Bread, Food

12 Comments

...e I’m sleeping the sourdough culture is growing exponentially in the flour/water mixture. I need to make my dough within 8 to 12 hours of that feeding. If I wait too long the sourdough starter will lose its vigor. How do I know the starter is ready to use? I do a float test. If you gently spoon the culture into some water it should float, an indication that it’s active and full of CO2 bubbles. One of the most common mistakes with beginning sourdou...

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Self-Irrigating Gutter Update

Mr. Homegrown

June 5, 2013

Gardening, Self Watering Containers

4 Comments

...rel. Unfortunately the lower gutter leaked around 50 gallons of stored rainwater down into the garage below (our house is on a hill and the garage is at street level). To prevent this problem in the future I put a manual irrigation timer on the barrel so that if there is a leak, I won’t lose all the water at once. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEeCgGAbvwk If I were to do this project again, I’d also use a refinement that Larry Hall just posted in...

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Mulch, mulch, mulch!

Mrs. Homegrown

May 14, 2015

Back to the Garden, Garden Design, Gardening, Permaculture, Soil

11 Comments

...ood mulch. In addition, she ran drip lines beneath the mulch to bring some water into the picture. (That is necessary here, as we get so little rain–it wouldn’t be necessary everywhere.) She let that stew for a couple of months, and then checked back in. As if by magic, the soil beneath the mulch had come to life. The water and the insulation called to the worms. They came from…somewhere. (The ways of worms are mysterious!) And they went to work o...

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Saturday Linkages: Goat Wars, Dinites and a Sanitary Pad Revolution

Mr. Homegrown

March 15, 2014

Saturday Linkages

4 Comments

...com/2014/02/a-rat-map-that-shows-nycs-restaurant-rodent-takeover/ … Is hot water more effective for washing hands? No! http://barfblog.com/2014/03/no-is-hot-water-more-effective-for-washing-hands/ … Red house with salvaged doors in Liverpool http://www.recyclart.org/2014/03/red-house-salvaged-doors-liverpool/ … BBC News – Why do people wear a monocle? http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-26482529 … The Indian sanitary pad revolutionary h...

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