Author Archives: Attached Mama

Cloth Diaper Laundry: Do You Use Baking Soda and Vinegar?

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Using baking soda and vinegar to wash cloth diapers

Understanding basic laundry science helps you get your cloth diaper washing right from the start. Understanding the basics of all of your household cleaning lets you use the simplest cleaners that do the job. We broke down household cleaning into five ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen.

When we apply that same idea of getting down to basic ingredients to cloth diapers, though, we don’t always end up with a solution that works for the diapers we have. When pushing the pH of baby diapers back to neutral (newborn skin and water pH 7), it is tempting to use baking soda (pH 9) or vinegar (pH 2) because we have them right there.

To clean grease from kitchen tiles or mold from walls, vinegar is a big help. Vinegar can help you break down mineral build up in your washing machine. But, if your problem is detergent build up in the washing machine, you should use baking soda. If you don’t know the difference and you use the wrong cleaner, it won’t help. They aren’t interchangeable.

You probably won’t hurt your tiles or walls by using the wrong cleaner, but your cloth diapers are different. They are made of material that is easier to damage. Use caution when you add baking soda or vinegar to your cloth diaper wash because they can have negative effects on some materials commonly used in cloth diapers. When they are safe to use, make sure you are using the right natural cleaning ingredient for the right job.

Sometimes I think manufacturers might be extra cautious with warranties that forbid specific additives because they want to simplify things for you, which is understandable. I wouldn’t want to encourage you to use additives restricted in warranties because I might not have all of the facts. What if I said, “Yes, of course baking soda is fine with your diapers,” then you use it on your bamboo rayon diapers and find that they start to disintegrate. Always look for the wash recommendations from the manufacturer of your cloth diapers. Listen to the manufacturer first. They know the cloth diapers, and they want you to succeed in using them.

Baking Soda

  • What it is: sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3), mined from evaporated mineral springs. pH 9 (alkaline)
  • What it does: react with acids; absorbs odor as the microscopically porous molecules trap particles causing the odor. You may notice bubbling in hot water, as it releases carbon dioxide (CO2), leaving sodium carbonate (Na2CO3, washing soda) and water.
  • When to avoid it: when washing bamboo rayon, since it breaks down the fibers. It doesn’t just cause minor damage, it tries to return these extruded fibers to their pre-fiber goo state. IMPORTANT: DO NO USE WITH BAMBOO RAYON.
  • When to use it: in your dry pail as an odor absorbing pre-treatment. Not generally a problem as an ingredient in detergent, unless you are using rayon diapers.

Vinegar

  • What it is: solution of acetic acid (CH3CO2H). pH 2 (acidic)
  • What it does: dissolves mineral deposits (such as those left by hard water). Can be used as a natural antimicrobial (if you need to re-wash musty diapers left wet in the washer overnight)
  • When to avoid it: with PUL diapers and covers. Use sparingly with any product that has elastic.
  • When to use it: in wash to counter mineral build up in diapers and in final rinse as a natural fabric softener. Vinegar has many uses in laundry.

Asking Our Customers
As we through week after week of cloth diaper laundry advice, we are answering questions that we hear in the store and online daily at bynature.ca. One of our goals is to figure out where are customers are starting from. We don’t want to tell you what you already know. You may have noticed more cloth diaper laundry surveys than usual on our Facebook page. This is what we learned from you about baking soda and vinegar.

What Our Customers Say about Using Baking Soda on Cloth Diapers

I’m pleased to see that many of you are reading the wash instructions from manufacturers, and you know when baking soda is not recommended for your diapers.

Many of you use baking soda to deal with diaper pail stink or in the first rinse for general diaper stink. For some, baking soda was the solution to desperate stink situations.

Customers mentioned hard water in answer to both our baking soda and vinegar questions. Hard water causes some build up issues. How do you know if your have detergent build up or mineral build up in your diapers? Baking soda can help with the detergent build up (then, once the build up is gone, add more water and rinsing to your regular routine to prevent it happening again); it isn’t going to help with mineral build up, though, and it isn’t going to soften your hard water.

What Our Customers Say about using Vinegar on Cloth Diapers

It really surprised me to see so many people say they avoid vinegar because of hard water. I think we’ve run into one of those rumors about cloth diapers that isn’t actually based on the science.

Vinegar is not counterproductive in hard water. On the contrary, vinegar breaks down minerals. Vinegar will soften your water. Vinegar is commonly used as a natural fabric softener because it breaks down minerals.

If you have mineral build up in your diapers, bust that residue first. Then, go ahead and use vinegar. If you have a regular issue with this, you need to work on adjusting the basics of your wash routine because vinegar is not causing the problem of stink.

It’s true that some manufacturers recommend against vinegar—probably for the sake of simplicity, though likely because a lot of undiluted vinegar could break down soft plastics like PUL and elastic. Follow their advice IF you are using those materials. If you are washing all cotton prefolds or wool soakers, vinegar is your friend. Always remember when you are washing—or even before that when you are planning which cloth diapers to use—that not all cloth diapers are the same. Simpler materials require simpler cleaning.

Despite the bad advice about vinegar and hard water, I see that many people have had success with vinegar. Some use vinegar in every wash as a fabric softener, and some use it a couple of times a month.

As with all of the additives you can use when washing cloth diapers, it helps to know your diapers, your water, and your machine and choose your routine and ingredients based on your specific situation.

Image © Frannyanne | Dreamstime.com

Cloth Diaper Detergent Additives to Avoid, Usually

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Cloth diaper detergent additives to avoid

What is in your laundry detergent? Even if you read the ingredients, you might not know what the ingredients are or what they do. Plus, if you are washing cloth diapers, you probably have in mind a list of additives to avoid because they void warranties.

In the spirit of asking WHY we should avoid every little thing rather than just giving you mysteriously vague rules to follow, we’re getting into the details of detergent additives today. We hope this will help you choose which detergent to use for cloth diapers and understand why you might even choose a separate detergent for the rest of your laundry.

The No-Nos

Brighteners

  • What it is: organic chemicals such as amino triazine, coumarin, and stilbene (that’s organic in the chemical sense not the agricultural sense)
  • What it does: gives the appearance of a whiter fabric. Think of these as little light reflectors that sit above the surface of the fabric fooling your eyes into thinking the real yellows of the fabric are more blue.
  • When to avoid it: always! You don’t want to use anything in your cloth diaper laundry that leaves a coating on the fabric.
  • When to use it: never an appropriate additive for use with cloth diapers and not necessary with your other laundry.

Dyes

  • What it is: chemical compounds
  • What it does: a very small amount of color fools your eye into not seeing the underlying color of your laundry.
  • When to avoid it: always! Can leave a coating or, in some cases, be an allergen or irritant.
  • When to use it: never an appropriate additive for use with cloth diapers an not necessary with your other laundry.

Fabric Softener

  • What it is: chemical compounds that act as cationic surfactants
  • What it does: positive charge aligns on the surface of the fabric to create a lubricating coating, which feels soft to the touch and prevents build up of static electricity.
  • When to avoid it: always! For cloth diapers, do not use detergents with added fabric softeners. Even more than most of the other additives listed here, this will leave a repelling coating on your diapers that prevents fabrics from working as intended.
  • When to use it: Never. You can soften your cloth diapers without chemical softeners.

Stain Guard

  • What it is: chemical compounds vary
  • What it does: coats the fabric surface to repel stains during wear. Works in a similar way to fabric softener.
  • When to avoid it: always! Avoid anything designed to leave a coating because it will cause leaking and repelling.
  • When to use it: Never. The key to avoiding or removing stains from diapers is in how you treat the diapers after a diaper change. Use enzymes, warm pre-rinse, or sunning for natural stain removal.

Fragrance

  • What it is: artificial fragrances are chemical compounds that mimic natural scents; natural fragrances are usually extracted oils
  • What it does: smells nice, sometimes masking an underlying unpleasant scent in laundry that isn’t quite clean
  • When to avoid it: avoid artificial fragrances always. Avoid them not just in your laundry but throughout your home. Many of these chemical compounds are known allergens, irritants, and toxins.
  • When to use it: if you want a nice smell in addition to clean, use essential oils, BUT even these oils can coat the fibers of your cloth diapers and cause residue build up. Essential oils can be removed (washed out) of fibers easily, but you might want to avoid them for laundry.

The Naturals

Natural Oils

  • What it is: might be listed as “natural extract” on a detergent ingredient list. Fats or oils in natural soap can come from many different plant and animal sources, such as olive oil, milk, or soy. Saponification, the process of making natural soap, is a chemical reaction between lye (caustic) and fats or oils. Most laundry detergents are derived from petro-chemicals (oil and gas, primarily), but there are natural laundry soaps. Notice the difference in the use of the words “detergent” and “soap.”
  • What it does: could be a component of natural soap, an added scent, a natural fabric softener, or natural stain guard. Usually a natural replacement for one of the other additives listed here.
  • When to avoid it: in most cases, the oils in natural soaps will cause residue build up over time. I prefer to avoid petro-chemical products, but you need to understand the consequences of using natural products.
  • When to use it: some parents find no problem with natural soaps or soap nuts. If you want to go all natural and you have no problems, that’s perfect. If you do have build up but you don’t mind busting the build up with an occasion wash with RLR Laundry Treatment, that works. Ultimately, though, we’re trying to help you create a wash routine that works without leaving any kind of build up on your cloth diapers.

Free and Clear

  • What it is: microbiocidal or microbiostatic agents. Quaternary ammonium chloride and alcohol are two examples often used in detergents
  • What it does: kill (microbiocidal) or inhibit (microstatic) the growth of bacteria, fungi, and viruses, which could cause odor, staining, or allergies.
  • When to avoid it: if your fleece or PUL pocket diapers are leaking or repelling, this could be the culprit. These agents might be reacting with your water.
  • When to use it: many parents find no problem with free and clear detergents, but use with caution. Look for signs of leaking, and discontinue if it happens.

Enzymes

  • What it is: living enzyme cultures, most often in laundry detergent you will find protease (breaks down proteins) and amylase (breaks down carbohydrates)
  • What it does: breaks down (eats, digests, processes) organic materials that cause stains and odors
  • When to avoid it: when the warranty on your cloth diapers prohibits use of enzymes (maybe) or your child experiences redness or sensitivity (if you trace it back to enzymes). Most children will not have problems with diapers when enzymes are used in the cleaning. Studies suggest that it is not even possible for enzymes to cause rash and redness, since they do not attack living cells. It is common among cloth diaper people to recommend against the use of enzymes, but we find them a very useful, low-environmental impact addition to washing heavily soiled laundry such as cloth diapers, socks, and T-shirts.
  • When to use it: pre-soak or low-temperature wash. See our detailed post about enzymes in cloth diaper laundry from earlier this week.

The Basic Cleaners

Borax

  • What it is: sodium borate, mined from evaporated lakes or produced synthetically
  • What it does: softens water; converts water to hydrogen peroxide. Works better in hotter water.
  • When to avoid it: because borax is caustic, it could cause some breakdown in soft plastics and latex. You might want to avoid it on covers that have soft plastics (PUL) or elastic and on diapers with elastic. If you have trouble rinsing your laundry completely because of an HE washer or a detergent that leaves a residue, don’t use borax. It can be a skin irritant if left in residue. In general, though, borax used properly and rinsed completely is just one of the basic ingredients of laundry detergent. Keep it away from children and pets; don’t breathe it in; don’t use it around food.
  • When to use it: use freely with prefolds. Many homemade laundry detergents use borax as an ingredient. Unless you have trouble rinsing out detergent, it is safe.

Baking Soda

  • What it is: sodium bicarbonate, mined from evaporated mineral springs
  • What it does: in baking, it acts as leavening agent by reacting with acidic ingredients to release carbon dioxide; in laundry, it is used as a softener and odor absorber.
  • When to avoid it: when washing bamboo rayon, since it breaks down the fibers. It doesn’t just cause minor damage, it tries to return these extruded fibers to their pre-fiber goo state. IMPORTANT: DO NO USE WITH BAMBOO RAYON.
  • When to use it: sprinkle in your dry pail as an odor absorbing pre-treatment. Not generally a problem as an ingredient in detergent, unless you are using rayon diapers.

Oxygen Bleach

  • What it is: sodium percarbonate (or hydrogen peroxide, when liquid)
  • What it does: breaks the chemical bonds of color, such as stains that you are trying to remove from diapers.
  • When to avoid it: low temperatures, since it only works at higher temperatures. In general, you don’t need to avoid oxygen bleach or hydrogen peroxide. This is a safe alternative to chlorine bleach. If you notice excessive breakdown of fibers or if you are washing primarily PUL, you might want to use it only sparingly.
  • When to use it: generally safe for health and environment as an additive in laundry detergent or as an additional treatment for laundry.

Which laundry detergent additives you avoid often depends on your water, your washing machine, and the type of fabrics you are washing. We hope that understanding detergent ingredients will help you pick a detergent that will work for you from the start.

Image © Glo5 | Dreamstime.com

Cloth Diaper Laundry Additives: Enzymes

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When to use enzymes with cloth diapers

You’ve heard that enzymes are bad for cloth diaper washing, yet parents use them safely. Why? We will tell you what enzymes do, and when are they useful.

Conflicting Information

There is a lot of conflicting information about enzymes and cloth diapers, and parents find it confusing. Manufacturers know their products, so we look to them for laundering advice. Some say, “absolutely use enzymes,” while others say, “absolutely not.” You will even find that using a detergent with enzymes invalidates one manufacturer’s warranty when that same manufacturer sells an enzyme (microbe) spray for pre-wash treatment to be used on every diaper, cover, and insert. No wonder we are confused.

What Enzymes Do

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical processes, processes like metabolism, which breaks down foods in our digestive system to produce energy. In laundry, enzymes break down soils and bacteria that cause stains and odors. Break down, digest, munch, or catalyze—all of those words give you the right idea. We don’t have to understand the science on the micro level to understand that enzymes help remove soils from laundry.

There are many thousands of named enzymes and many thousands more waiting to be named. Only a few of them are used in laundry. Among those I found listed in detergents are:

  • amylase (breaks down carbohydrates, like starch)
  • cellulase (breaks down cellulose, like bamboo, cotton, mud, or grass stains; used to prevent pilling)
  • lipase (breaks down fats, like grease stains)
  • mannanase (breaks down simple sugars)
  • pectinase (breaks down pectin from plants)
  • protease (breaks down proteins, like wool, silk, blood, or poop stains)

Some detergents and laundry additives will list ingredients for you, so you can figure out which enzymes they are using for which specific purposes.

For dirty socks, sweaty t-shirts, or dirty diapers, it is particularly important to break down the organic matter that causes stains and odors. For most of your wash, breaking down soils really doesn’t matter that much because the mechanical and chemical processes of laundry release soils on their own.

The Claims & Rumors about Enzymes

The general consensus is that using enzymes on cloth diapers is bad for diapers, bad for babies, and bad for the environment. All wrong, though I think I understand how the absolutes of this consensus got started.

Bad for diapers. A sliver of truth. The claim is that enzymes break down fibers on a diaper, but that is only true for some fibers. Cellulase is added to anti-pilling detergent formulas, and it does break down the tiny fibers that are raised above cotton fabrics. That is one enzyme. Avoid it. Different enzymes break down different materials. They don’t all mysteriously attack all diapers.

Bad for babies. No. This is the controversy, since no one wants to do anything that causes harm to babies, so manufacturers and diaper washing parents avoid anything that might cause harm. Enzymes are blamed for harm that they aren’t capable of causing, though. More on this below.

Bad for the environment. Also, untrue. Enzymes are naturally occurring and biodegradable. When I see someone say, “I don’t want to use those harsh chemicals or nasty cleaning agents” about enzymes, I don’t know where to start. Actually, adding enzymes to detergents lowers the overall environmental impact of the detergent and allows you to get the same cleaning power without using as much heat. Remember the WATCH formula of Water, Agitation, Time, Chemicals, and Heat? When you adjust one factor, you can reduce the others. Enzymes catalyze the reaction with soils so you can reduce heat as a factor, so you lower the environmental impact of your washing even more.

I also see certain statements repeated and passed from person to person.

“React differently in different situations on different babies.” That says nothing while implying that enzymes are unpredictable. They aren’t. Once you know how they work, you can predict them. All this says is that the function of enzymes is a mystery to some who give cloth diaper laundry advice.

“Activated by water.” I think I can see where the idea of “activated by water” came from. Enzymes in powdered detergents are coated with inorganic salts and sugars, then cellulose fibers, then waxy materials. (Waxy materials! I see residue.) The resulting granules prevent damage in the box of laundry detergent. The enzymes aren’t free to begin breaking down soils until the heat and water break down their coating. They aren’t so much activated by water as released when the water breaks down their coating.

“Activated by water” was then turned into “OMG! If enzymes are left in my cloth diapers after the wash, they will become activated when my baby pees and eat my baby’s skin.” I’ve seen many websites, both those of manufacturers and those offering independent cloth diaper advice, assure parents that baby pee activates enzymes. Some go on to say that these activated enzymes will attack the healthy, delicate skin of babies. “OMG! OMG! Horrible, terrible, very bad blistering bleeding rashes.”  The problem with that logic, though, is that the protein digesting enzyme, protease, doesn’t break down living cells. Protease is one of the enzymes created by the human pancreas to break down proteins into amino acids during digestion. It doesn’t break down your whole digestive system—it just breaks down the food you eat.

So, let’s back up. First, if your wash routine is leaving any kind of residue, you need to change your wash routine.Try another rinse. Second, this enzyme doesn’t eat (digest, attack, or harm) our living tissue. In a beautifully myth-busting article, Mona of Soap Nuts points out that such enzymes are used in spa treatments to get rid of dead skin cells.

There are three misunderstandings here: 1) it’s usual that enzymes are left in residue on diapers (wrong! residue is the result of a wash routine that needs adjustment), 2) that a baby peeing on enzyme residue left in a cloth diaper will activate the enzymes (wrong! the granules from detergent wouldn’t make it through the wash), and 3) that those enzymes will eat away at the skin of the baby (wrong! they don’t break down living cells). These are slips of logic that we should not perpetuate.

Sometimes—I would venture to say, usually—cloth diaper expertise passed from parent to parent is a good thing. Other times, rumors snowball out of control and become absolute truth despite the lack of evidence.

Our goal with this diaper laundry series on EcoBabySteps is to dispel rumors and mysteries by looking at the evidence and the reasons behind all of the (sometimes conflicting) information you have heard about your cloth diaper laundry.

When Enzymes Work

Enzymes in liquid pre-wash spray work without any other help. They begin to break down organic materials that leave stain and odor. Enzymes in liquid detergent begin their work as soon as they meet soil in your wash. Enzymes in powdered detergent begin their work as soon as their protective coating is dissolved. Because you’ve already begun to break down the poop, stains, stink, and nastiness that you are trying to wash out, you can lower the other WATCH formula factors to get the same results with your laundry. If you are using enzymes with cloth diapers, you probably need the extra boost of cleaning power, though, so you might not want to lower the other factors.

A little is all you need. Enzymes continue to work after a chemical reaction is complete until there are no more reactions available. Just understand that more isn’t better.

When Enzymes Don’t Work

Enzymes won’t work in high pH. In cloth diaper wash, that means you waste the enzymes if you use baking soda or bleach. Enzymes also won’t work in high heat, which is usually fine, since you don’t need super hot water to get the same cleaning power. (I’m curious about this, since one source of enzymes is micro-organisms that live in hot springs.)

What About Sensitivities

It is possible some people are sensitive to detergents with enzymes; it is possible they are sensitive to some other ingredient in those detergents. Studies have looked at whether diapers washed with enzymes cause more skin rash. One study of 360 babies showed that those who wore diapers washed with biological detergent containing enzymes were no more likely than the test group to get rashes. (Granted, the neutrality of that study was disputed because authors have ties to manufacturers of products that use enzymes.)

Does that mean your baby won’t get a rash? No. Should you stop using enzymes if you think they are causing a problem? Yes. Does that necessarily mean enzymes are the culprit? No, but stopping doesn’t hurt.

Why the Conflicting Information

Whenever I hear a rumor run rampant about cloth diapers or some other aspect of parenting (if I even recognize it as a rumor), I wonder where it came from. I think there is too much to figure out. It’s difficult to dig down to the evidence in every case, so we tend to believe what we hear often enough. Plus, even if we dig, it’s tough to understand the science.

Rather than figuring out what each laundry additive does or explaining the situations when it might be helpful, it’s easier to protect a product warranty by recommending against. In the case of enzymes, I think it has been easier to lump them together with residue-causing laundry additives and dismiss them

Will Enzymes Damage the Diapers?

Wool and silk, probably, since they are proteins. Bamboo rayon, don’t know, but rayon is a more fragile fiber than most, so I wouldn’t want to find out. You can reduce your rayon diapers to mush through your chemical experiments if you aren’t careful. PUL, don’t know. Polyester, highly unlikely. Polyester is chemically inert. There is nothing for the enzymes to catalyze. Cotton, unlikely, though some detergents with enzymes that promise to keep fabrics looking new (anti-pilling formulas) do so by munching away at the little fibers that work their way loose from the main threads. Do all enzymes do that, no, cellulase does that.

My final answer about damage to diapers: I don’t know. I think that’s a great question to answer with research, though.

So, to Use Enzymes or Not to Use Enzymes

I’ve heard many times, “Enzymes don’t make sense to me, so I don’t use them.” I hope they make more sense now. I hope you see the situations in which it would make sense to use enzymes when you are washing cloth diapers.

I used Biokleen Bac Out Stain and Odor Eliminator on my babies’ diapers. I had no trouble. I even found out the hard way that it would not cause harm when ingested (when my toddler took a gulp of Bac Out, and I called the company in a panic to find out the ingredients).

If you don’t have stains or odor, don’t bother. If you do have stains or odor, use enzyme spray directly on the soiled area of the diaper and let sit for at least 10 minutes before you wash. I just sprayed on the diaper before putting it in the pail. I didn’t add Bac Out to the wash.

If you still have stains and odor after pre-treating, you might want to try a detergent with enzymes, keeping in mind that this will invalidate the warranty on some (PUL) diapers. It won’t harm the diapers, but as long as the manufacturers think it will and you want to keep the diapers under warranty, you may want to avoid enzymes. If you are willing to use a detergent with enzymes, you might be surprised to hear that many parents who have trouble with other detergents on cloth diapers use regular, original Tide, which does have enzymes (among the many dozens of Tide products, you will find different enzymes). Tide Original also has brighteners, which are a cloth diaper no-no because they leave a residue by design. You could try Tide Free without brighteners to get a similar effect. You experiment and use what works.

If your child is very sensitive or SOMETHING is causing a rash, cut out all of the extras and use Allen’s Naturally laundry liquid. Add extra rinses. Change your wash routine.

But, the answer is not that cloth diapers are bad or cause rashes or that enzymes are bad or cause rashes. The answer might not even be as simple as direct cause and effect, so just choose the simplest options that work for you.

Using enzymes as an additive is one more tool in your cloth diaper laundry toolkit. Use enzyme products when you have stains and stink.

Image © Wavebreakmedia Ltd | Dreamstime.com

Wild Gardens for Busy Parents: Prepare the Ground

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Even a busy parent can plant a wild garden

This is the year we are letting go of our ambitions for a perfect garden and creating a garden that fits into our busy schedule. We are planting wild gardens for busy parents.

April Preparations

If you follow last month’s easy steps, you already started small, shared your plan, and set your goal. This month, we prepare the ground and the seed or plant. If you are just starting now, it’s easy to catch up.

  • Prepare the ground
  • Prepare the seed or plant

Prepare the ground. Dig the dirt in the area where you are going to plant. How deep you dig depends on the plants. About 6″ average will be fine for most plants. For carrots or potatoes, dig at least 12″. For my volunteer pumpkins, I don’t dig at all. They just grow in the hard dirt next to my sidewalk where my kids carve pumpkins each year. How you prepare the ground depends on what you want the dirt to do.
Goal: dig a little

Add organic matter to the dirt. If you made compost over the past year, its time has come. Dig in about 50/50 dirt and organic matter. If you don’t have enough compost, you can add shredded leaves. If you still don’t have enough, go to a garden store, tell them the condition of your soil, and buy a bag of whatever they recommend. If you have clay, you might need sand (though be careful adding sand). If you have sand, you might need peat moss or topsoil. You’ll pay, sure, but it’s a trade off between money and the time it takes to make enough compost.
Goal: add organic matter

Prepare the seed or plant. When you plant outside depends on your weather and your plant. Look at your projected last frost date. You will probably not plant until after that date, but you can make exceptions if you are willing to put in a little more time to do research. Add the frost date to your plan, if you’ve been taking notes. (Gardeners take notes. If you are more wild than that, fine.) That is your target planting date. If you have to order a plant, place your order now. If you need to grow seedlings, check the seeds to see how quickly they grow. Plan your seed start date so you have a seedling ready on your plant date. It could be time to start the seeds now.
Goal: have the seed or plant ready on the planting date

To check your projected last frost date, you can look at these frost charts for Canada, which give you only one date as a broad estimate, or enter your zip code for this very cool frost chart that gives you the chance of frost by date and spring temperature.

If you have chosen your one tiny patch to nurture for this year, preparing the ground should not take you more than 30 minutes.

What I did.

We prepared the ground the difficult way. Preparing the ground is not such an easy task with my ground.

Shallow. My soil is generally shallow, since my house is built on what used to be a stone quarry. I remember one year when my mother planted carrots that all came out bent at 90 degree angles. (I live in the house I grew up in.) After about 8″, we just have rocks.

Dry. I live in a desert. The soil dries out very quickly and easily, so I don’t want to make it even easier for water to drain.

Depleted. For at least the past 20 years, the spot I chose has had the same old bushes, with no improvements at all in the soil. You can see the stumps that we finally pulled out in last month’s post.

Visible. Because my space is along the sidewalk leading to my front door, I also want it to look nice.

Because of all of this and the fact that my husband is very attached to the success of his hops, I planned a raised bed. A raised bed gives us a lot more flexibility in soil quality and depth.

Ground conclusion: preparing the ground did not take 30 minutes.

I presented my husband with the idea of a raised bed. I showed him instructions and pointed out the pile of painted wood in our backyard, left over from replacing the cedar siding on our house. In my mind, I can see how I would do it in 30 minutes, but his fussery has resulted in approximately 1 hour of planning, 2 hours of him deciding where to put the bed (in a space that is only 2-4″ larger than the bed on each side), and I assume another 2-12 hours of him putting the pieces together and filling them with dirt. As you can see from the photo, he isn’t done. I hear the hammering as I write, so I am confident you will see the result next month.

The expected result is a 6′ x 3′ x 1.5′ cedar-sided raised bed that matches the color of our house, with hops that shade the wall of our kitchen, making that room ever so slightly cooler in the hottest part of summer.

Because the hops we are planting are my husband’s babies, intended to be used for home brewing, he is fussing over them and their bed. That’s fine, of course, as long as he has the time to fuss. In last month’s post I suggested that one of the essentials of your wild garden is to share the gardening or the planning. I shared the idea, and my husband took over. I love this. I just need to give him gentle nudges every once in a while, like researching raised beds and pointing to already painted wood in the yard.

You could also have your children do supervised planting, though that probably takes longer than just doing it yourself. It depends whether your goal is the process or the product.

We prepared for the plant. Three hops rhizomes arrived this week. We need to plant them as quickly as possible, but we also need to avoid frost. We had 8″ of snow last week before the two 80 degree days showed up and melted it away, so it’s warm but we aren’t past the threat of frost quite yet. According to the zip code frost chart above, we still have a 90% chance of more frost. So, part of our gardening this week involves planning to protect the plants on cold nights.

Hops can sometimes grow 12″ a day, though 24″ a week is more usual. We have a space 8-9′ then we will train them to grow out. To give them support as they grow, we are running a wire up from the bed to the wire where our grapes and blackberries grow along the edge of our roof.

If your plant will need support, plan for that as you prepare the space.

Hops rhizomes
Your April List: Prepare the Ground

You can do it! Spend 30 minutes on your garden in April.

  • Dig the ground (10 minutes)
  • Add organic matter (10 minutes)
  • Start the plants (10 minutes)

If you have less than ideal soil to start, you might want to spend extra time preparing the ground, though you don’t have to go so far as to build a raised bed like I did. This is definitely the month to spend a little extra time if you want your garden to perform well.

Progress of my wild garden

Cloth Diaper Laundry Additives: Fabric Softeners

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Cloth Diaper Fabric Softeners

Making your cloth diapers soft has to be a good thing, right? Of course, but don’t be fooled into using chemical fabric softeners to do it or you will be in for a leaky, repelling surprise.

As we think through the reasons behind basic cloth diaper washing techniques, we want you to have the information you need to make decisions about your laundry. Sometimes additives sneak in under your radar based on the claimed results (“Whiter! Brighter! Softer! Self-folding!”). If you saw on the box a description of what products actually do—that is, how they work—you might not be so quick to add to your laundry.

I often think of the 1990 film Crazy People, in which an advertising exec leads a group of patients in a mental institution in writing honest advertisements. Volvo, for example, was “boxy but good.” For fabric softeners, we could say:

“Fabric softeners coat your clothes with chemical lubricants that conduct electricity so you don’t notice a build up of static cling!”

“Hydrophobic chemicals in fabric softeners reduce absorbency of your cloth diapers but feel smooth against your baby’s skin.”

“You may inhale toxic chemicals from this softener, leaving you with headaches and irritability, but at least the fabric won’t irritate your skin, much.”

It doesn’t sound so appealing that way.

First Rule of Fabric Softener for Cloth Diapers: Don’t Use It

Do not use chemical fabric softener with cloth diapers. Look at your detergent, and avoid a detergent with added softeners. It doesn’t matter whether these are silicone-based lubricants, polymer emulsions, clay, salt, acid, fragrance, or whatever. The point is, you don’t want to add any of this to your diapers. They will leave residues that will inhibit absorbency of cotton diapers, wool covers, and microfiber inserts; deteriorate the waterproof laminate layer on PUL covers; cause build up on your washing machine and dryer; and coat all of your cloth diapering accessories with a layer that will hold on to stink.

There are exceptions to the rule not to use fabric softeners. You can soften your diapers without the negative effects of chemical softeners. As with all of our other laundry advice, you need to know what problem you are solving before you can decide on a solution.

Vinegar can have a similar effect to chemical softeners in neutralizing the electric charge that you notice as static electricity. You will find some cloth diaper retailers who recommend baking soda in the rinse to soften cloth diapers. These might be fine with cotton and hemp, but they might not be fine with the rest of your diapers. Using either will void the warranty on some diapers. (More on vinegar and baking soda coming up.)

Wool dryer balls or hard dryer balls, like Nellie’s Dryer Balls, can soften fabrics mechanically rather than chemically—that is, by flexing the fibers as they tumble in the dryer. To the extent that they neutralize the electrical charge, they have a similar effect to chemical softeners designed to reduce static cling.

Dryer sheets without chemicals can also be cloth diaper safe. Maddocks Static Eliminator Reusable Dryer Sheets reduce static cling because of their weave. They only get a B in the Environmental Working Group database of household products, though, because they are made with polyester and nylon.

A few fabric softeners get a good grade in the Environmental Working Group database of household products. Keep in mind, though, that any gum or glycerin can coat diapers—even natural fiber fitted or flat diapers. A natural residue is still a residue. You don’t need any kind of gummy lubricants for your cloth diapers.

What Do You Customers Say?

We’ve been asking customers and Facebook followers what laundry additives they use and why. I was pleased to see that most of you already know that you shouldn’t be using fabric softeners with cloth diapers, and many of you understand why.

“I don’t use it for anything at all. Too many awful chemicals!” says Alyssa.
“I don’t even have fabric softener; seems like a waste of money,” wrote Michelle.
“Wool dryer balls all the way!” says Stephanie

Simple Guidelines to Fabric Softening