Spring on our Balcony Garden

It is lovely to go out on our balcony garden these days! All the green peeping from the soil and buds on the plants. Here are some of our stars. We also have tomato seedlings, a beet root, and a type of vegetable which is appearing in every pot.

Lemon blossoms looking pretty and perfuming the room
(Background: Looking down at the park from the 14th floor)

Pea flower

Pea
Our pea shoots are growing in a mix of coconut coir and organic matter in
stacked planter which we built

The harvest
Don't laugh - I am optimistic

Strawberry tartlets are technically from my kitchen not garden but
strawberries are one of the spring fruits that we are now enjoying 

Pickled Toilets / Homemade Vinegar

A bottle of "Toilet Duck" stands on the top shelf in the toilet. Looking at it each time gives me such a sense of satisfaction. It was the first and last bottle of commercial toilet cleaner I bought in Taiwan. When it was running low, sometime around April / May, I decided to go green with toilet cleaning. I switched to vinegar.

At first I bought the cheapest bottle of vinegar from the supermarket for cleaning the toilets. It was the store brand and cost around TWD 22 for 600ml. Unlike commercial cleaners which are thick and gooey. Vinegar is thin and watery. It simply flows out of the old washing liquid bottle which I re-bottled it in. I know our Ah Yee uses copious amounts each time. I am refilling the bottle quite regularly. My green cleaning was not quite as cost effective as the commercial stuff.

I decided to make vinegar myself. I had made garbage enzyme when I was in Malaysia. I think the 'garbage' eventually became enzyme. My only regret was I did not use it. I poured the whole lot over the garden while packing to move to Taiwan. I remember the alcoholic smell that lingered in the air after that! I didn't want to make garbage enzyme - the recipe calls for sugar. Sugar is expensive in Taiwan.

Garbage Enzyme:
Molasses/Black Sugar : Vegetable/Fruit Dreg : Water = 1:3:10

I goggled homemade vinegar. There are many recipes on the web. Most are recipes for fancy fruit vinegars and gourmet vinegar. I did not care for those. No, I didn't care to eat the vinegar that I was going to make. I wanted to make an ecological cleaner from waste. I wanted to make vinegar from vegetable / fruit dregs and water.
It was on naturemom.com I found a recipe which I could use. I have not been able to get back to the site. She provides recipes for different fruit vinegars like apple cider vinegar. The ingredients are simple - fruit and water left to ferment for 3 month. I can't remember if she mentioned special equipment to prevent air from getting to the vinegar. Again, I wasn't planning to eat my vinegar so I was not fussed.

I made my first bottle at the end of June. The main ingredient was an overripe papaya. I placed the papaya into a bottleful of water. It was an giant size dishwashing liquid bottle. I shook bottle every few days whenever I remembered and let the gas out. A week later, I covered it with a brown bag.

The papaya vinegar should have been ready for use at the end of September. When I opened the bottle, it smelled really alcoholic - papaya booze. I decided to let it ferment another month, since I still had the commercial vinegar. My other vinegar ingredients are leftover rice, organic grape skins (rejected by the kids), overripe banana, vegetables.

I now have a row of fresh milk bottles (I am reusing the bottles in which the fresh milk we buy come in) standing below the air con compressor at the back balcony. I cover them with paper bags to shield from the sun.
Last week, I harvested my papaya vinegar. I poured the liquid into a clean milk bottle. It will be diluted by half or more before use. To simple me, toilet cleaning is not rocket science, it does matter how concentrated the vinegar is as long as it is not corroding the porcelain. There were still papaya pieces in the vinegar which I am saving to make more vinegar.

The verdict: The toilets look clean to me. I did not receive any complaints. Success !

Now that's 2 steps towards more natural living and this could be a fun activity to do with the kiddies.

This One is for the Sisters

Before you read on, I am telling you upfront that this post is about cotton menstrual pads and periods.
I am truly excited to share my positive experience with washable, reusable cotton menstrual pads with the hope that you will be inspired to give them a go. In case, you don't plan to read on, here's my conclusion.

1) The cottons pads are superbly comfortable
2) I did not experience any leaks and staining of bedsheets / panties
3) They are easy to wash & dry - with the right handling
4) With a simple and not inconvenient life style change, I am protecting mother earth

I got my supply of pads from Nice Cloth Diaper, an online store that sells cloth diapers, cotton menstrual pads and natural home products. I got to know Sin Dee who runs the store a few years back when I started cloth diapering. I am inspired by Sin Dee and her life.  My word for Sin Dee is "passionate" (that wasn't the first word that came to my mind when I met her). But now, that's my word for her - passionate about life, the environment, spirituality, her girls, her products. There is something about Sin Dee that is beyond what I can describe - it's a quiet spiritual quality, a fine balance she sets between the worldly and the spiritual. Well, enough about Sin Dee for now. This is getting too "Eat Pray Love".

The cotton pads come in a variety of designs and sizes - just like the disposables. Sizes include 1) panty liners 2) regular 3) long and wide. They all have 'wings' cause that's what holds them in place on the panty. There is a tiny button (a press start?) at the bottom of the wing. Each pad comes with a towel insert. You have the option of increasing the absorbency by adding your own inserts e.g. a thicker towel.

When shopping, I was drawn to a very pretty print called 'Butterfly'. I could very well imagine how the 'Butterfly' will looks like with tomato ketchup. But I couldn't resist. I rationalized that I would be the only person to see the soiled 'Butterfly', so I threw caution to the wind. Anyway, the 'Butterfly' was not available in the numbers I wanted and Sin Dee recommended 'Microfibre' (another design). My current favorite is Microfibre. Strong stomach or not, save the pretty white prints for something that you wear on the outside.

Microfibre and Butterfly

I made sure I got enough pads to discontinue using disposables at my very next period. I was determined to go cold turkey.  This is my algorithm to determine how many to get - (maximum number of pads needed on a heavy day x 2) + 1 spare. I opted to 'regular' for day use and 'long and wide' for night.

When I got the stocks, I  was really excited. The "Butterfly" is really pretty :). And for the first time since, my first period, I looked forward to getting my period. Whoo whoo!

Of course, I had apprehensions about the whole thing. You will too. But I found my fears to be unfounded.
Firstly, would the pad would stay in place? With the disposables, there is a strip of glue which runs from end to end. With the cotton pad, it's the wings hugging the panty in the middle. Nothing at either end of the pad. I found myself checking the position throughout the day but the wings held on well.

The thought of washing soiled pads freaked me out. I was determined to find a system where the actually scrubbing I had to do was minimal. And here it is. I got a rubbish bin with a lid and filled it about half full of water. With each change of pad, I removed the soiled insert and threw both the pad and insert into the bin. With enough water in the bin, the stains diffused out of the inserts and pads in a few hours. Diffusion happens when molecules move from an area of high concentration to an area of lower concentration. Minimal scrubbing -  I simply rubbed some soap on each item and rinsed it out.


Keep in here after use

Like the cloth diapers, if it is changed while one is out and about, you will need to prepare a bag to carry it home in. There are some nice wet bags available that will do the trick. I saw some in Daiso for about USD1. The neat thing about the pads are they fold into a small square which is held in place by the wings and button. This makes them very portable.

Neat !

The pads and towels dried quickly. On some days, when I washed them at night, they were dried by the next morning. I still maintain that it is better to have enough supplies for at least 2 days. Now that I know that I will be continuing this, I will probably get more so that I can be more relaxed about washing.

I love my washable, reusable cotton menstrual pads. My glad rags make me glad that I have taken another step in the direction of a more natural life that serves me and the environment. You could too !