A Clean Home is a Healthy Home - Spring Cleaning Idea

It is that time again ... SPRING CLEANING ... I have been doing well keeping my personal system (my body) cleansed and healthy ... now its time to deep clean the house.  A friend sent this chart to me from The Fresh and Organized Web Site. If you go to the site, you can actually download and print out this chart.  I like it because you only have to do one thing a day and by the end of the month you have deep cleaned your whole house!

The 31 Day House Cleaning Routine

Feb 27, 2013

Cleaning can be such a chore! Excuse the pun, but it's true that keeping a clean house can be an overwhelming experience -- especially when you're used to living in a smaller place like an apartment.

My husband and I usually try to deep clean our house once a week, but after reading (and pinning) this article on Apartment Therapy called, 'How to Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day for 30 Days,' I was inspired to try this method. Basically how it works is that instead of doing everything in one day, you follow a schedule where in addition to your typical household chores like doing the dishes, you do a 20-minute (the use of a timer is encouraged) cleaning task per day. The schedule has a list of rotating cleaning tasks to do and by the end of 30 days, you start over on day 1 and by doing this, your house should be nice and clean.

Since I enjoy making printables, I decided to come up with my own version of the schedule and here's what it ended up looking like:

Click Here to Download This Free Printable!

• Instead of the 30 day schedule, I named it the, "31 Day House Cleaning Routine," so the list can be used for months that have up to 31 days.

• On the left of the page are the 31 days and next to that I can write the first letter of the corresponding day of the week. For example, since March 1st is on a Friday, I would just write in the letter F, right next to the number 1.

• For the cleaning tasks themselves, I pretty much followed what was on the schedule in the Apartment Therapy article, with just a few minor tweaks.

• Since my husband and I share some of the cleaning tasks, I added a 'Who' column so we could write the name of the person who would be doing each particular task.

• Finally, on the far right of the page are checkboxes for checking off all the tasks that have been completed.

Seed Starting Chart

If you are like Tom and me, you can't wait to get your seeds into the ground.  Here is a great little chart from the Knowledge Weighs Nothing Website to let you know when to grab your trowel and start planting.

My Strawberry (Gutter) Fields Forever

Here is a picture I found of a strawberry garden that has actually been planted in GUTTERS!  (No ... not the ones attached to the house!!)

We found some great vinyl gutters at Home Depot this weekend. Check out that price -- only $5.23 for a 10 foot length of gutter. The gutters come in brown or white. We opted for the brown ones.  I really like this gutter because the edges are rounded and finished off so no cut fingers! (Which is always an advantage as far as I am concerned!) Also, the "pocket" is deep enough to accommodate the potting soil.

Our strawberries are all ready to go ... so guess what we are going to be doing NEXT weekend!!

How to Build a Hanging Gutter Garden

Here is another vertical garden idea I "borrowed" from The Goods Home Design Website.
Also check out my "Strawberry Gutter" idea in the next post!!!

Gutter gardens are a great way to take advantage of the vertical spaces around your home to grow flowers, edibles and create a stylish space divider or privacy screen without spending too much money.

MATERIALS:

1 – 8′ PVC white rain gutter cut into 3 32″ sections
6 – PVC white gutter end caps
2 – 1/8″diameter steel cables cut to desired length
6 – Feeney Cross Clamps (see image below)
6 – 1/8″ diameter Feeney steel rods
2 – Galvanized eye hooks
Potting soil and Plants

TOOLS:

Cordless Drill with drill bit set
Hand saw or hack saw
T-square or straight edge
Tape measure
Permanent marker
Level
Eye protection

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Determine the center of your gutters and draw a reference line (otherwise your gutter won’t hang right).

2. Mark and drill the holes for the steel cable rods. Find a drill bit the same diameter as the cable to minimize the wiggle room.

3. Space drill holes a few sizes larger to make sure you get good drainage (plant roots hate sitting in water for long periods of time).

1. Locate a spot that gets at least 4 hours of sun. I placed mine on the cross beams of a pergola I built a couple of years ago.

2. Drill pilot holes (a hole slightly smaller in diameter than the screw diameter) to make screwing in the eye hook a lot easier. Make sure the holes are the same distance as the steel cable so they hang straight down.

3. Slide the gutters through the holes and secure them with the cross clamps at your desired heights. You’ll notice I placed mesh tape (normally used for drywall joints), left over from another project, over the drainage holes to keep the soil from seeping. However, I think the holes are small enough, this step is not necessary. I did it out of habit.

4. Secure the gutter with the cross clamps and half circle steel rods.

Going Organic the Easy (and Cheap) Way!!

When I talk about "going organic" I have people tell me all the time that "it is too expensive to buy organic food."  That is true, but I realized that it is sort of a "pay now or pay later" type decision.  You can pay for cheaper GMO or conventionally grown produce and meats and save in the pocket book today, or you can "go organic" and save the cost of medication and treatments for illnesses that these toxin laden foods cause in the future.

But you don't have to spend a lot of money on organic produce.  What if I told you that you could get $100 (or more) worth of  fresh, healthy, delicious tomatoes for $4???!!!  Now that is a great ROI don't you think?  How can you do this?  Buy a $2 pack of seeds and a $2 bag of planting soil and GROW YOUR OWN.  It simple ... fun ... healthy ... and the kids can even help!!

Tom and I have already planted our lettuce (Mesculin, which is made up of a variety of lettuces).  This spring mix of salad greens can cost around $2.50 in the "bag" at the grocery store, but we can go out every night and cut a fresh salad from our garden all summer long. What is our cost for a summer's worth of salads? -- $5.00!!  How can you beat that????

You can grow your favorite veggies anywhere, even in a pot on your back porch if that is all the room you have.  Start out easy ... maybe a batch of lettuce and a tomato plant to start.  Once you taste the fresh difference and feel the savings in your pocketbook ... you will be hooked on growing your own produce like me!!!

My Salad Bar in the Making

Tonight we finally put our lettuce starts in their new home.  Tom is posed with two of the main ingredients for this transplant: potting mixture, alfalfa meal, and behind him ... the ever present compost material!!

The hints I picked up from Jerry Baker said to mix your planting mix with compost material.  Nearly fill your container to the top and add a cup or so of alfalfa meal (this adds nitrogen to the soil).  Add two more inches of potting soil on top of that.  Then put in your transplants.

We have planted arugula, red and green roamine, red leaf lettuce, and buttercrunch.  We have already been snipping off lettuce for our salad ... the leaves are so tender and delicious!  There is abolutely no comparison to the stuff you buy in the store.

We are going to plant new seeds every 10 days so we have lettuce throughout the growing season.  I can see Tom out there now out on the patio with his little bowl, clipping his evening salad.  Can't you?

Woot!! I Mowed the Lawn Today!!!

This might sound silly ... but I am so excited ... today, for the first time in a VERY long time,  I was able to mow the lawn.  Why is this exciting?  Well, because until I lost 100 pounds with Isagenix, I couldn't even fit behind the steering wheel of the lawn tractor .... today .... No Problem-o!!!" I am jazzed!! On to new conquests in my life! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Tents Fer My Tomaters!!

We transplanted all of the tomatoes into containers ... but I think it is still pretty cold and windy at night.  So I went to Costco and bought a big box of those 33 gallon clear-ish garbage bags and made little tents out of them.  By the time we finished tonight, we were glad we did .. the wind picked up and it was really chilly.  We would have probably had to start from scratch on the tomatoes tomorrow.  Anyway .. this is an experiment ... we will see how it goes.  Let me know what you think!!

Farmer Tom Plows His Field

Farmer Tom is so excited.  He was able to use his very own tractor/rototiller for the very first time today in the garden.  Let me tell you, this has been a long time coming ... but very worth the wait.  He was happy as a clam as he rumbled through our hard packed clay!!

How We Spent May Day 2011

What a fantastic day!!  The weather was gorgeous (63 degrees!!)  We set up our little green house and put all the plants we bought from Territorial Seeds in it, which consisted mostly of lettuce and tomatoes.  We started our squashes, peas and beans in our little peat pots.

We put all of our herbs into the planter box.  And although you can't see them in our pictures, we set up all the geraniums (which were still blooming in the pool building), in their planter boxes on the deck.

It was a GREAT day!!  Smiles!!

Building Our Raised Bed Gardens

Tom and Russell are building the raised bed gardens.  We are excited to start the planting.  We should have lots of fresh veggies and fruit this year .... ummmm? ... I might have to learn to can!!!

The lettuce is ready to go in as soon as it stops raining a little bit this weekend ... Can't wait ... I love fresh greens for my salads!

Earth Day Trip to Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove

Tom and I had a great EARTH day, April 22nd, 2011.  We drove down to Territorial Seed Company and bought some seed and starts for our spring garden.  It was a totally beautiful day.  And we had a lot of fun planning the garden together.