Clear out your cupboards and spruce up your surfaces without expensive cleaning products – natural alternatives can provide a thrifty, green clean
words NATALIE HARDWICK
Blossoming daffodils, verdant veg boxes and baby chicks – spring is all about new beginnings and brighter times. The clocks springing forward is the impetus we need for putting behind the dark days of winter and tackling a stale kitchen that may be filled with unseasonal ingredients like Christmas mincemeat and a freezer full of soup and stew. Follow our tips for sprucing up your kitchen and enjoy the new season with a well organised, clean space to cook.
1Love your lemons
Go eco-friendly with your cleaning approach and use lemons as a natural antibacterial bleach. If you’re using lemons in cooking, don’t throw away the squeezed halves – rub them over your chopping board to disinfect it, or use them to clean and deodorise surfaces.
2 Descale without fail
After a winter of endless cups of tea and coffee, chances are your kettle may have a slightly grim interior. Make the most of storecupboard vinegar by doubling it up as a descaler. As it’s a weak acid, it’s perfect for cleaning, disinfecting and reducing limescale and mineral deposits. Add half a cup of neat white vinegar to a kettle filled with water and leave it to sit overnight – this should remove any surface scale. If you have a chrome kettle you could also use it on a cloth or newspaper to buff up the outside.
3Tackle the oven
It’s one of the most dreaded cleaning tasks, but scrubbing the oven doesn’t have to be a chore. Try using a solution of equal parts salt and bicarbonate of soda, and enough vinegar to make it froth into a spreadable paste, plus a squirt of lemon juice. Leave the paste on for a few hours, then remove gunk from the corners with wire wool, a sponge, an old toothbrush or metal scraper – you’ll be surprised at how effective such a benign cocktail of products can be.
4 Go for soda
As well as being a baker’s best friend, bicarbonate of soda is a magic cleaning product, too. Ditch the expensive specialist products and use bicarbonate to cut through grease in blocked sinks and remove stains from crockery and surfaces by using a little sprinkled on a damp cloth. As its alkaline, it softens hard water and cuts through grime without
