Green Home!

Archive for October, 2009

What is Foliar Feeding?
Foliar feeding the application of fertilizer to the leaves of plants rather than to the roots. Foliar feeding can be a powerful stimulant to plant growth as leaves take up to 95% of the nutrients in the fertilizer. Root feeding takes up much less.

Why Foliar Feed?
There are many instances when foliar feeding is very beneficial:

To perk up wilted or damaged plants whose roots are in poor condition

When variegated plants are too white, foliar feeding with fish emulsion or other high nitrogen fertilizer will ?green up? the leaves

For newly rooted leaves, foliar feeding helps in the development of baby plants. Baby plants have little or no root system, so foliar feeding provides nutrients to help build a strong root system.

Show plants may also benefit with the extra boost foliar feeding provides

How to Foliar Feed
Select a fertilizer that is recommended for foliar feeding. Use 1/8 to ? tsp. to a gallon of hot water. Your spray bottle should deliver a fine, even spray. Mist the entire plant lightly, early in the morning so the leaves can dry before cooler nighttime temperatures set in. If any water accumulates in the center of the plants, blot dry with a tissue.

Do not foliar feed more often than 2 times per week and not during hot months when soil bacteria is more active.

The benefits of foliar feeding will be noticed in 2 to 3 week.

From the first time I saw, first hand, a solar cell making electricity, I was hooked. It was magnetic. I was going to have one, making electricity for me, one day. I didn’t get around to trying it, until about 1979. I ordered $400.00 worth of solar cells from a company in California. I made a makeshift solar panel with them, which worked for a while.

Much later, in 1993, I tracked down a company in Calgary, who sold solar panels. I bought 1 for about $500.00. It was about the size of a large beach towel. It was blue in color and was mounted inside an aluminium frame. My first attempt at making a solar power lighting system worked but wasn’t very efficient. I used a little incandescent bulb from a reading lamp hooked up to a car battery, that was charged by the solar panel. I mounted the solar panel in the most sunny window I had to put it in. At that time there weren’t compact florescent light bulbs. I liked that solar panel so much that I bought 3 more like it from the same company. Each panel made about 50 watts in direct sunlight.

A solar cell reacts with sunlight making a positive and negative charge. When you link the two charges by attaching a wire to both ends of the solar cell, charged electrons move along the wire, and an electric current flows. When the cells are joined together, to increase the voltage and amperage, you have made a solar panel. So all this makes the electricity your light uses.

Once you have the electricity, you have to store it somewhere, or use it right away. Since the whole point of a light is to use it in the dark, and solar panels only work in sunlight, you need a battery, to store the electricity until you are ready to turn the light on.

To keep the electricity in the battery while the solar panel is connected, a diode is used. A diode is an electronic device which only allows direct current to travel in one direction. If the current tries to go in the other direction, then the diode stops it. This happens when a big dark cloud moves in front of the sun. Your panel makes so little power the battery has more voltage push, than what is coming from the panel. So the voltage from the battery tries to send current out from the battery. We want the battery to charge, and not waste the electricity until we turn on the light.

To use the direct current electricity in a battery, to run an alternating current or household current compact florescent light, you need to convert the electricity from the battery, to the kind of electricity the light will use. This device is called an inverter. It makes AC electricity out of DC electricity. The inverter is connected to the battery and the power cord from the light is plugged into the inverter.

When you switch your light on, you are using the power from the sunlight captured during the day time. The advantage of using compact florescent light bulbs is that they are very energy efficient, using little electricity, and giving out the same amount of light used by a 60 watt regular light bulb. You make your own power and don’t care if the power from the electric company goes off. Your lighting system will still work.

There are many types of wet mops and dust mops that can be used to clean a floor. Each type of wet and dust mop has a specific purpose. This article will give you some insight on what different types of wet mops and dust mops are used for.

Looped end mops are probably the most common wet mop used today. The looped ends on the mop give it extra surface area allowing it to hold more liquid and cover more of the floor with one swipe. The lopped ends on this type of mop also stop the mop from snagging and catching on corners or under furniture. Looped end mops are typically a little more costly than cut end mops but last a little longer and do a better job. The looped ends on the mop also will make it unlikely that the mop will fray or unravel. Some of these mops are launderable and can be cleaned and reused countless times.

Cut end mops are great for spill cleanup, home use or as a disposable mop head. Cut end mops are usually less expensive that lopped end mops because the strands just attach on the mop band end. These mops will usually fray and unravel over time and are not recommend for machine washing as the strands will tangle in the washing machine.

Microfiber mops are great for residential use or for areas that need quick and constant cleanup. Microfiber mops can be easily thrown into the washing machine after each use for easy cleanup. These mops are generally smaller in size than dust mops and are color coded blue for wet mop and white for microfiber dry mopping.

Types of dust mops:

Looped end dust mops are just as the name suggests. The strands that protrude from the dust mop are looped back and sewn. This gives the dust mop more surface area to pick up dust and debris.

On the cut end dust mop, strands protrude from the dust mop and then are cut. These dust mops have less surface area to pick up dust and debris but can pick up finer particles of dust because the end fibers in each strand are showing at the cut.

The clip style of a dust mop refers to how the dust mop attaches to the frame. A clip style dust mop uses snaps or clips to secure it to the dust mop frame.

The tie style dust mop attaches its self to the dust mop with two ties on each side. The ties are usually tied into a bow to secure to mop to the frame.

Microfiber dust mops are great for residential use and areas that need constant and quick cleanup. These mops are recommended for dust and smaller debris.

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Your pillow can be your best friend or your worst enemy. After all you spend one-third of your life with your pillow and it knows better than anybody how you sleep best and how you sleep worst. Doesn’t it make sense to make the right choice to provide yourself the most comfort and the best sleep during that significant portion of your life.

In order to get the most out of your pillow you really should give it more than a passing thought. But if you’ve ever been to the pillow department and seen all the choices, you have probably suffered from “pillow shock” at the amazing array and the stunning expense.

First things first, are you looking for a “sleeping pillow” or a “looking good pillow?” Around my house, there are pillows we sleep with and pillows we put on the bed to look good. This article focuses mainly on “sleeping pillows.” However, we’ll say this about pillows that are meant to look good: Pick a good pillow that will retain its shape and choose the length and shape that looks best to you. If it’s not meant to be used, those are really the only things that matter.

Now, sleeping pillows have a very specific purpose: To help you sleep your best. There are several options to consider:

SIZE – There are basically three sizes available. Standard, King, and Queen. A King or Queen pillow may be too long for sleeping unless you’re looking for a body length pillow. Occasionally you may find full-body length pillows available.

FIRMNESS – Pay attention to the firmness of a pillow when you’re purchasing it. The required firmness of the pillow will change depending on the position you sleep in. Your pillow should give you proper head and spine support. The shape and support that your pillow provides changes if you are a back sleeper or a side sleeper. If you’re a back sleeper you will need a fairly flat or soft pillow. If you’re a side sleeper, you might need a pillow that has some more substantial support that can support your head. Here are some quick and dirty guidelines:

Stomach Sleeper – go for ‘soft’
Back Sleeper – go for ‘medium’
Side Sleeper – go for ‘firm’

Of course if you’re like me, you might flop around in some or all of those positions making your firmness choice a bit more difficult.

FILLINGS – Pillow fillings are important to your pillow choice and have a great deal of impact on pillow comfort, durability, and even air quality. You have quite a few options available to you and each has it’s own positives and negatives. Cotton is naturally hypoallergenic, but can compact over time. Down or down-blend is considered the height of comfort, longevity, and adjustability. Even though some progress has been made in hypoallergenic down pillows, those with allergy sensitivities may still have problems with down pillows. Feather pillows use different blends of down and feathers in many different combinations. The same warning for allergy sensitive users should apply here. Polyester comes in a couple of different grades, regular polyester is pretty common but can become compacted, like cotton. Siliconized polyester feels similar to down and will not become compacted like regular polyester. Latex foam rubber gives good support and maintains its shape but will break down over time.

COVERING – The ticking (cloth covering) for your pillow serves several purposes. It should keep the filling in and keep the dust out of your pillow. For a down pillow, look for a 250 thread count on the ticking. For other fillings, 200 thread count should be sufficient.

Don’t cheat yourself when choosing a pillow. It can really be more important than you can ever imagine. Once you’ve slept through the night with the right pillow, you’ll never want to go back.

A home is a place where family members get to be themselves in a relaxing atmosphere. An ideal home should have a comfortable and soothing ambiance that will encourage its occupants to stay there and enjoy each other’s company.

However, a home that is lived in can sometimes have a busy atmosphere because of the clutter and the unorganized gadgets and home furnishing. While it is natural for a lived-in home to have that homey look, it is nevertheless more convenient to have an uncluttered home for the sake of the sanity of household members who want to live in a place that is not physically and psychologically chaotic.

How to keep your homes organized

To give your home that organized look, you have to take advantage of various home organizers. There are organizers for just about every area of your home like the bathroom, living room and the garage. Even your study room or home office should be free from that chaotic look to make your mind more organized.

The secret of an organized and uncluttered home is storage. Having the proper place and equipment to store things can make a difference no matter how small your home is.

Proper storage means being able to identify things that are frequently used in your household as well as things that are no longer required for the time being. Things that are no longer being used everyday should be kept in the storage room and preserved for future use. Things that have outgrown their usefulness like damaged remote controls, tables and chairs should be thrown away or given to other people who may have a need for them.

There are bins or organizers for small home accessories and you can label each organizer so that even if they are packed and stored, you are still able to identify them when you will need them.

There are stores selling storage organizers like containers and boxes which you can either label or color code for easy identification later on. You can use box organizers for your book collection, your CDs and DVDs and even for your unused office accessories.

You can buy a bathroom organizer to properly store your shampoo, soap and other toiletries to avoid bathroom clutter. A shower caddy is also a bathroom organizer which uses minimal space.

There are bins that you can use to organize your clothes, whether these are for repair or when they need sewing, for laundry or for a garage sale. Used pencils and pens that are no longer used can be thrown away or if you want to hold into them then you can place them in a pen organizer.

There are plenty of ways and means to organize your home clutter. One thing for sure though, all kinds of organizers should be taken advantage of as these can help you limit the clutter to a minimum.