9 Baking Soda Hacks To Keep Your Kitchen And Garden Looking Excellent
Niharika has a passion for all things art, music, and travel and has over 4 years of experience in writing for social media. During her spare time, she likes experimenting in the kitchen, playing vide... read full bio
Baking soda is one of the most useful ingredients found in an everyday kitchen. If you’re someone who wants to switch to natural and more eco-friendly ways of taking care of your kitchen and garden then we have some excellent baking soda hacks for you. This wonderful white powder can be used to clean surfaces, disinfect food, freshen clothes, and deodorize various belongings and many other things. Not only is baking soda useful for your kitchen and garden, but it is an inexpensive way to keep your entire household clean. So, here is a list of nine baking soda hacks that will help you keep your kitchen and garden smelling fresh and clean:
1. Fights Off Fungi
When you combine baking soda with water and soap, it can act as a repellent to fungi in certain types of fruit trees, plants, and shrubs. You can spray the mixture gently onto the plants in your garden or kitchen window box to keep them fresh and the plants healthy. Make sure the soap you use is eco-friendly as well and add very little to the mixture to ensure it stays as natural as possible.
2. Removes Food/Grease Buildup
Start by sprinkling baking soda across your porcelain, metal or ceramic sink. You can pick up a regular scrubbing brush from your local grocery store and use it to gently scrub the baking soda mixture around the sink. The grease, food and dirt buildup will glide off pretty smoothly after that. Once you’re done with that, splash some cold water across the sink and it should be good as new. If you want to add an extra dash of freshness, sprinkle a few drops of lemongrass essential oil with the baking soda whilst you’re cleaning it.
3. Reduces The Presence Of Aphids
Aphids are tiny insects whose main diets involve feasting on your precious plants and just being pesky and chirpy overall. Aphids will feast on your plant stems and excrete a sickeningly sweet substance that in turn attracts ants and causes fungi to appear. This in turn will cause your plants to refuse to sprout and slowly wither away. Use a gentle soap, water, and baking soda solution as a natural pesticide to keep these crazy critters away.
4. Keeps Rugs And Carpets Fresh
Nobody likes a stinky carpet! Between kids and pets, our rugs and carpets are often subjected to all kinds of torture and are thus more than likely to gather foul odors. In order to keep them smelling fresh, you can create a solution of baking soda, water, and essential oils and whisk them together. Once that is done, spray them liberally all across your rug. Vacuum the remaining moisture off your rug.
5. Cleans Crayon Marks Off The Wall
Kids get everywhere, don’t they? Or maybe you’re the artist kind and accidentally went a little too crazy on your last crayon painting. All you need to do is sprinkle some baking soda and soap liquid on a wet cloth and wipe it off the wall. You might have to wipe it a couple of times to see proper results.
6. Can Brighten Enameled Pots
Enameled pots are pretty cool to look at but besides being an aesthetic addition to your kitchen, it can truly amp up your cooking abilities. Keeping them clean and shiny are however, a bit of a hassle and pain. The inner part of the enameled pot can quickly go from sparkly to dull. So the trick to cleaning the inside is to fill the pot about three quarters of the way full with water, add one third of a cup of baking soda, bring the mixture to a boil, scrub the surface and rinse the inside with fresh water.
7. Can Clean Your Oven’s Bottom
Sprinkle the baking soda onto the bottom part of your oven, spray the surface with clean water and allow the mixture to sit still for a few hours (do not turn on the oven!). Finally, use a special textured scrub to get rid of the dirt and grime. The surface should now be sparkling clean!
8. Can Help Measure Soil Quality
Someone who is an expert at being a green thumb should know the basic rules of measuring the quality of their soil. Healthy soil is soil that is neither too alkaline nor too acidic in nature. The more neutral the quality of the soil, the better the quality of your plants. Hence you can go back to high school and use baking soda to measure the pH of your soil and find the best conditions to grow pest-free plants.
9. Acts As An Ant Repellant
When it comes to getting rid of ants, you have to go for a slightly more hardcore approach. Unlike aphids, ants will not be automatically repelled with the presence of soap. So instead of soap, you can mix the baking soda in a Bordeaux mixture (copper sulfate,water and hydrated lime) or even a Vicosa mixture (copper sulfate, water, magnesium sulfate, hydrated lime, and boric acid). This will keep your ants at bay.
You can use these tricks to keep your garden, kitchen window box, and kitchen in tip top shape. Baking soda is one of the best ingredients to keep your home feeling incredible. Do let us know if any of these tips were useful to your daily life in the comment section below!
