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Growing Indoor Celery

I love celery and always wondered about growing my own when I spotted this great idea about growing your own celery from a stalk end. So here is what I call my useful idea that you can eat.

First you just need the end of the stalk that you usually discard after cutting the celery stalks off which leaves the end base of the celery plant. You place the end in a can or dish with a few inches of water. Here is my can with the celery start in it. This photo was taken after one week in the water. As you can see the center has new growth and little green leaf starts are emerging.

For the full details on the experiment that 17 Apart did you can read their blog post here.

I just transplanted it into dirt at day 10. Re-plant the celery start in a pot of dirt. Cover up to the new leaf growth and water well. Here is the latest progress of my indoor celery start after re-potting the celery start today.

I will post more pictures of my celery growing experiment as my plant begins to grow. So check back in for an update on my celery growing in the coming weeks and months.

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Recycled Milk Jug Shovel

Check out this cool idea for recycling a milk jug into a shovel. The plastic shovel would make a great play shovel for kids at the beach or in the garden. You could also use the shovel for scooping flour, sugar, or other bulk ingredients in the kitchen.

Here are my shovels I made using a one gallon milk jug. The key is to cut with very sharp scissors and make your cuts wide so you can trim the shovel shape evenly on both sides.

Source:
Korean Crafts Blog

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Toothpaste Tube Recycled into a Funnel

Ever need a small funnel to fill a salt or pepper shaker? Don’t you just hate it when you try and fill those small containers and half your ingredients end up not going into the shaker? Well here is a useful idea for recycling a toothpaste tube into a funnel.

Take any regular toothpaste tube and rinse out any remaining bits of toothpaste. I rinse my tubes out in hot water and leave it to soak upright in the sink. Then you want to cut off the end just above the end seam of the tube with a sharp pair of scissors. Rinse the tube out again and let it air dry. If it has a lingering toothpaste smell, you can rinse it out again with some white vinegar to help get rid of the toothpaste odor but it really doesn’t hurt anything if it still smells of toothpaste a bit.

Once dry, you can now use your recycled toothpaste tube for a small funnel to fill salt, pepper, or other small-mouthed containers. The small screw end of the toothpaste tube fits nicely inside salt or pepper shakers making for a easy fill now for your kitchen cooking needs.

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Homemade Manly Soap

My husband loves to work on trucks, cars, tractors, and other greasy things. I have been making our own soaps but he needed something more stronger and thus I created what I call manly soap. I used a Lava soap bar to make this homemade recipe. Lava soap contains pumice which is the important ingredient in this soap that can really cut the grease on your hands.

For those who have been making your own soap, this is just a little more aggressive soap to fight the grease and grim on your hands when you have been working on vehicles and farm equipment.

The ingredients:
1/2 cup grated Lava soap bar
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp honey
1 tsp glycerin
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Testing Yeast if Active


I made some pizza dough the other day and it just didn’t rise. That got me wondering if my yeast was still active as the dough just didn’t rise at all. There are several methods for testing or proofing yeast to see if it’s still active. I used the process that eHow outlined to test my yeast.

I bought this yeast bulk and still have a large jar of it. So I followed the following steps to test it for its potency:

  • 1/2 cup of warm water in a measuring cup. Check the temperature to make sure it’s about 110-115F.
  • Stir in 1 teaspoon of sugar and add 2 teaspoons of yeast or packet.

    • Let it sit for 10 minutes. If foam and bubbles form, your yeast is still active. As you can see my yeast didn’t have much activity at 10 minutes but after 20 minutes this was my results.


    Bottom line — I think my yeast is just okay but will proof it again before using it in a recipe. I hope you find this tip useful and use it next time you want to proof your yeast.

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    Recycling Orange Peels into a Cleaner

    Recently I had a friend who shared that she recycles orange peels into this awesome cleaner. You just add some white vinegar to a jar with some orange peels and let it set for about a week or two. Here is my mix with peelings from just one orange and about two cups of vinegar.

    Just shake the jar a few times as it sits and the vinegar begins to absorb the citrus from the orange peelings. The vinegar will turn a tint of orange after about a week or so. You can add it to a spray bottle and use it to clean counters, bathroom surfaces, sinks, toilets, and floors. This homemade cleaner has a wonderful citric smell and leaves everything clean and smelling great.

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