Household Cleaning Uses For Vinegar

By | March 25, 2014
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Shower (Photo credits: www.swimmingpoolsigns.com)

Some simple uses for vinegar in your green home and garden.

Somewhere in the last 50 years homemakers have been fed a lie that we need 50 different cleaning products to keep our home dirt and germ free. Well, its not actually good to use disinfectants and anti bacterial soaps and cleaning agents in your home. Besides for the fact that many of these chemicals are more harmful for you than the “germ” they are killing is, many of the bacteria that the cleaning solutions kill are in fact part of God’s creation designed to keep the balance.

Bringing the balance back to your home and garden can be done by simply finishing the products you bought in your last grocery shopping trip and switching to two very simple, frugal ingredients – vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Here are some ways that you can use them in your home to achieve all your cleaning needs.

Uses for vinegar in cooking:Household uses for white distilled vinegar: Vinegar can be used undiluted for the following:
~Degreasing drains and plugholes.
~Removing stains on white clothing – simply dab onto all stains including red wine, blood and deodorant stains, then wash as normal.
~Pour neat vinegar into the toilet bowl, leave to stand overnight, then scrub in the normal way the next day.

~Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to your water when boiling eggs to stop them cracking
~Add 2 tablespoons vinegar and 1 tablespoon sugar to cut flower water to keep fresh for longer
~Add 250ml vinegar to your stock water – before you heat the bones. This softens the bones to allow more minerals to be released into the stock

Diluted vinegar can be used as follows:
~ For all general cleaning (stoves, counter tops, baths, basins, floors, windows, fridges and ovens) mix up 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water. Place in a spray bottle and use as you would any other cleaning product.
~ To whiten whites add 1 cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle. This also has a softening effect on the clothing and is especially good for blankets.
~ Rinse fresh produce in basin of water with 2 tablespoons vinegar.
~ Disinfect wood chopping boards by soaking for 10 minutes in 1 part vinegar, 2 parts water.
~ Any limescale can be treated with 1 part vinegar to 2 parts water. (Shower heads and taps)

Garden uses for vinegar
~For fungus and moulds on veggies, mix up a solution of 5 litres of water, 1 cup of white vinegar and a tablespoon of organic dishwashing liquid. The dishwashing liquid is a binding agent. Spray your plants leaves and stems and the ground around the infected plants twice daily until the mould disappears.

~To kill weeds growing in between paving stones, pour neat vinegar on them for a few days. They will die pretty soon!

~ Pour undiluted vinegar down ant holes to stop the pests.

~ Clean plastic patio furniture, bird baths, pond bottoms and other garden tools with diluted vinegar.

More green cleaning ideas
Household uses for Bicarbonate of Soda

 

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