I’ve been making my own laundry detergent for a while now.  I’ve tried a powdered formulation, and while it’s much easier to store, I much prefer the results of the liquid variety, and will be returning to that as soon as I run out of the powder I made…which should be in about 2014.

I recently got interested in figuring out how to make a cheaper, homemade dishwasher detergent as well, and started doing some research.  Many recommend Borax and Washing Soda in equal parts, followed by white vinegar in the rinse aid dispenser.  Although Borax isn’t terribly dangerous, it is mildly toxic and can be fatal if ingested, especially by young children.  I feel weird about putting it on my dishes on purpose, even knowing that it will be washed off, so I went looking for a Borax-free recipe.

I was surprised to find that most “dishwasher detergent” recipes call for combining Castille soap (such as good old wacky Dr. Bronner’s) and vinegar, often with the addition of tea tree oil and/or lemon juice.  Excuse me?  Soap is very alkaline and made from fatty acids plus a very strong alkali (like sodium hydroxide).  Vinegar and lemon juice are acids.  What happens when you put them together?  Well, nothing blows up, but your dishes don’t get clean, that’s for sure.   What happens is a process which is the reverse of saponification, which is how a fatty acid is combined with a strong alkaline to make soap.  This  means basically you’re reversing the process that made soap in the first place, and you wind up with lumps of creamy white fat suspended in liquid.  Yay.  Ew?

I’ve seen some articles that say, “Just keep mixing if you get white globs.”  Well, the white globs won’t go away, they’re fat.  Another said they strained out the white globby stuff and used the liquid.  Except that the liquid is no longer soap, it’s vinegar, water, and oils.  Ew.  Not good for cleaning.   Another said that duh, you have to use HOT water or it won’t work.  Well….that just means the fat liquifies.  Once it cools, the white globby bits come back, as noted in that same article.

I thought I would demonstrate exactly what happens, and that this doesn’t mean you did it wrong.  It means the recipe is wrong. Don’t combine castille soap and vinegar.  You could potentially use castille soap as your “dishwashing detergent” and vinegar and lemon juice in the rinse aid dispenser, but using soap in the dishwasher isn’t recommended either.  There’s a difference between a detergent and a soap.  Dishwashers are meant for use with the former, not the latter.  Typically, so is your washing machine.

First, I took a small glass and added one part vinegar, one part warm water, per the basic recipe I keep seeing repeated.  The bottle to the left is Dr. Bronner’s Peppermint Castille Soap.  The labels are wacky, the soap is good, and it gives me flashbacks to Nerd Camp when I was a kid.

Doctor Bronner's Peppermint Soap on the left, vinegar and water in the glass.

Second step, add a few drops of Dr. Bronner’s to see what happens.  Almost immediately, a cloudy white precipitate forms, and a scum forms on the surface of the glass.  Ew.  Nasty.  It’s like the crusty layer in a bathtub if you use too much soap and let it kind of sit.  Gross.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Then I added the full amount of Dr. Bronner’s that would be called for, proportionately, to make a batch this size.  It was like watching cottage cheese form from nowhere.  Really yucky.

Dishwasher detergents should not be chunky like cottage cheese in bathwater.

Finally, I stirred it up a bit, as per the instructions on the one blog that assured people it’d be just fine if they “stirred it up a lot.”  I did stir.  What happened was that all the little fatty globs got together and made one big glob.  I pulled some out on the spoon, and for science’s sake, I poked at it with a finger.  Felt like very runny Crisco.  Definitely fatty, greasy.  I actually had to get some dishwashing liquid to wash it off my hands.  That’s not gonna work well to clean dishes!  I also stuck my finger in the leftover liquid.  Oily, but not soapy feeling.  And it doesn’t act like soap in water anymore, either.  Ew.

This will not get your dishes clean. Gross.

Final verdict: Don’t try this at home.   I haven’t yet tried Dr. Bronner’s alone or followed by a vinegar rinse in the dishwasher, but this is definitely not the way to go.   And hopefully it goes without saying that this won’t make a good concoction to clean windows, or floors, or anything else, either…

A while back I mentioned that I’m alarmed by the number of people who classify anything that buzzes, is black and yellow and vaguely striped, and is hanging around the yard as a “bee”. And that they furthermore seem to hate bees with such a passion that they swat, poison, trap, stomp, squash, maim, fold, spindle and mutilate indiscriminately. Eventually I’ll get around to posting a quick primer on What Is A Real Bee and Why Do We Like (and NEED) Bees? But right now, I’d like to address a Not-Bee critter that makes itself annoying around summer picnics and backyard BBQ’s.

I’m talking about the Yellow Jacket, or hornets, or wasps. Around here, it’s mostly yellow jackets. These guys:

Not A Bee, kids. Yellowjacket. Genus Vespula or Dolichovespula (bees are Apis). These are the most common pests at picnics, because about the time we want to be out frolicking in the late summer heat, their tastes in foods switch over from flowers, fruits, and sap to ripe and fermenting fruits and foods high in sugar like sodas. They also require meat to chew up and feed to their larvae, hence their overt interest in your tasty hotdog. Adding further to their undesirability as a picnic companion, they are much more aggressive than bees, and can sting more than once with no problem. They can also bite. Neato!

So what to do about them pestering you at a picnic? Sprays are a bad idea in general but particularly around food, and I hope I don’t have to tell anyone why. Citronella candles can be of some help, but not much in my experience. You can purchase nifty wasp traps, but they’re made of plastic, are generally not reusable, and junk up the landfills, plus they’re expensive and usually have a chemical lure as part of the trap. You can purchase beautiful reusable glass wasp traps without the chemicals or the plastic, but they get expensive and are better for use on a backyard table than hauled along camping or to a picnic. And realistically, what happens when you’re already camping or at a picnic, and the yellowjackets invade? No access to a store, no traps with you, what now? Build your own trap!

I once went camping with some friends, a good half hour from the nearest small town, and we had exactly this sort of thing happen. Lots of yellowjackets trying to ruin our good time. So while some of our companions headed into town to purchase traps, I showed the 9 year old in our group how to make our own.

YOU WILL NEED:

* An empty 1 or 2 liter plastic bottle with a narrow mouth. Pop bottles are ideal, but other kinds will work. (Lemon juice bottles and Bailey’s Irish Creme come to mind.)

* Bait. Fish is ideal because it smells strongly. Hot dog bits, canned cat food, slices of beef, raw meat, or even regular soda will work if it’s all you have. Meat is better, because beneficial bees have no interest in it, while the pesky yellowjackets love it.

* A knife or a pair of scissors

Remove and discard the cap. Find the part of the bottle where the sloping top turns into straight sides. Cut all the way around the bottle at this point, and remove the tapered top from the straight-sided bottom.

Place your bait in the bottom of the trap. Bonus points if it reeks. Add a little water to the bottom, but don’t completely submerge the bait.

Invert the sloped top into the main body of the container. If the sloped top is too large to fit well or hangs too deeply, you can trim some off of it. You will now have a container with what amounts to a funnel jammed in the top.

So I just wrote about dealing with the overflow of plastic pots you might have if you buy plants very often. Of course one easy thing to do with them is use them to start new seeds. But if you actually have a situation where you don’t have enough little plastic pots, or yours are all too large, then what?

You can of course buy peat pellets, or the brown biodegradable pots you can plant right along with your seedlings. Or…you can make your own “plantable” pots out of recycled newspaper. Cheaper, available in endless quantities so you never run out in the middle of planting, makes good use of waste materials, and kinda fun to do, especially if you have kids!

There are several methods. All of them require:

* Black and white newsprint (no colored newspaper)
OR plain brown paper, as from shopping bags
OR other plain, uncolored paper, at least 10″ in length and 3.5″ wide
* Scissors or a paper cutter
* Potting soil
* Seeds or seedlings

* Brown paper tape (optional – use paper tape as it’s biodegradable)

Method 1: Storebought Pot Making Tool

I have one of these little doodads, called a Pot Maker. They’re available at various garden stores, and range in price from $9.99 to $19.99, so shop around.

Take your paper, and cut strips 3 1/2″ wide by 10″ (at least) long. Wrap a strip around the pot form, leaving the first corner sticking up a little bit and wrapping the rest around the cylinder part of the form. You should have it fairly even at the top of the cylinder, and have quite a bit sticking over the bottom.

Fold in the bottom on one side, then the other, creating two pointed bits. Fold in one point, then the other. (You rolled coins sometime in your life, right? Same idea.) Press the folded bottom down onto the mold form, and twist a few times to crease. Remove from the form, and fold the little pointy corner you left at the top forward over the side of the pot, to secure it.

Fill with dirt and seeds or seedlings, pack tightly into a seed-starting tray, pan, or box, and you’re good to go!

Method 2: Homemade Pot Making Tool
Two words: Pop Can. Seriously. It’s a little larger than the pot making tool described above, but it’s got the divot on the bottom and it’s cylindrical. Plus it’s basically free. A full pop can will work better than an empty one, just because you won’t have to worry about crushing it, but either way will suffice. And if you crush an empty one, hey, you can always get another.

Measure the paper lengthwise to wrap at least twice around the can, and widthwise to go halfway up the pop can plus 3/4 of the way across the bottom. Proceed as above. When it comes time to smash it onto the bottom form, use a lid from a milk or preferably a juice jug, and press the bottom of the can firmly onto that, twisting to be sure it creases. If you have difficulty getting it to crease, you can add a small piece of brown paper tape to your pot to hold it together.

If you want to make this a more permanent setup, take an empty pop can, fill it with sand, and seal the top tightly with duct tape. For the base, take a block of wood slightly larger than the diameter of the pop can, place a juice jug lid in the center of it, and glue it in place with heavy-duty glue like gorilla glue or barge cement. Not so pretty, but it’ll work well enough!

You can actually use any size cylinder you like, from a fish food container to a can of vegetables. If you don’t have the divot on the bottom for crimping, just secure the bottom fold with a piece of paper tape.

Method 3: Origami
I haven’t the patience for this method, but some people do! It makes containers more sturdy than the above, and some can be done with recycled printer paper (check to be sure your inks don’t contain anything toxic. Soy ink is ideal.)

Some of you probably made origami boxes as a kid. Same idea for newspaper pots! Since I’m not an Origami gal, I’m going to leave some pointers to tutorials.

Origami Seedling Pot Instructional Video – bit long, but thorough, and good design.

Origami Seedling Pot - same basic pot as above, pictures and instructions

Origami Box - Sure looks the same as the others, but it’s from Rachael Ray’s site, and it’s designed for use with thicker paper to make party snack holders.

Origami Seedling Pot Video 2 – About half as long as the first one, same basic pot.

Notes About Newspaper Pots
* I don’t find these pots to be terribly sturdy, so you’re probably going to want to pack them close together in a tray. A reusable seed-starting tray would be ideal, but an old roasting pan (check Goodwill or your local thrift stores) or even a very sturdy cardboard box would do…just remember the cardboard will get wet and eventually disintegrate.

* Again because they’re not terribly sturdy, you’re probably going to want to use a fairly loose, dry potting soil mix to fill the pots. Of course it will compact down when you water it, it just makes loading the little pot easier.

* They do dry out fairly quickly, though if you keep them packed shoulder to shoulder and in a humid greenhouse, it won’t be much of an issue.

* And finally, when it comes to planting these guys, you won’t be able to carry them too far unless your seedlings have become rootbound, in which case the roots will hold the soil together. Just carry the entire tray over to where you’re going to plant, and lift each pot out carefully or they will fall apart. (This is also true of most peat pots after a few weeks of being in the greenhouse, so it’s not really much different.)

I’m not exactly a newbie at gardening, but neither am I a seasoned pro. I’ve been actively gardening in some form for about 8 years now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there’s always more to learn. Every time I peruse a garden catalog or hit the farm store, I find something new and interesting. Last trip to the farm store, I found this nifty invention and immediately understood the usefulness. I also immediately understood the additional expense!

In a nutshell, seed tape is a long strip of paper which is pre-embedded with seeds at the proper intervals for germination. It helps gardeners arrange straight rows, it helps eliminate the “oops” moments where too many seeds get planted in one spot, and it helps cut down on the need for thinning after sprouting, as the seeds are already the proper distance apart. And the best thing of all is that you can make your own seed tape out of recycled newspaper!

MAKE YOUR OWN SEED TAPE
You will need:
* Seeds
* Unprinted newsprint, or black and white newspaper (no colored inks)
* Flour
* Water
* Paintbrush
* A paper napkin and a wire tie
* A quart jar
* Powdered milk
(The last three bullets can be skipped if you’re going to plant soon)

Cut your newsprint lengthwise into 1″ wide strips.
In a small bowl, mix flour with enough water to make a thick paste. Dot it on the newsprint in the appropriate spacing for whatever seeds you’re using. Look at the seed packet to tell you how far apart they should be. Place a seed in the center of each flour paste dot. Allow to dry.

If you wish to store your seed tape, place a few teaspoons of dried milk in the middle of your napkin, and tie it up into a bag using the wire tie. Place the milk bag and the seed tapes in your jar, seal, keep in a cool dry spot until you’re ready to use them. The powdered milk absorbs moisture and keeps seeds from rotting or sprouting.

To plant your seed tape, dig a small furrow where you want your row of plants. Lay in the seed tape, and cover to the appropriate depth for your particular seeds, as indicated on the seed packet. Water as normal. The paper and flour will decompose in rapid order, leaving you with just evenly spaced seeds in straight rows!