I saw this idea on Pinterest a couple of months ago….and I the moment I saw it I knew I had to try it! I use A LOT of lemons…every time I drink water or tea it has lemon in it. I LOVE lemon!
But one thing I didn’t love was lemon peels…they take forever to compost, even if you chop em’ up tiny…and none of the animals readily eat them, oh the chickens will…but only if you cut them up tiny. And so there was always all these spent lemon peels from my lemon water/lemon tea habit…and so I would cut them up tiny, sometimes….and feed them to the chickens, but mostly I would just throw them away…
So I saw this idea where you take orange peels and fill a jar with them and then pour in white vinegar and let steep for a few weeks to get the citrus oils out of the peels and then filter it through a very fine filter into a spray bottle and then you have a citrus cleaner with natural citrus oils in it…
I have been cleaning my house with a white vinegar/water solution for years, so this was PERFECT.
I simply kept a mason jar on the counter and would throw in my spent lemon peels as I used them, filling with a bit of vinegar each time to keep things from rotting. Once the jar was filled to the top with peels I topped it off with vinegar and let it sit for about 3 weeks. I also made one with orange peels too.
After 3 weeks I filtered the vinegar through a reusable coffee filter to get out every tiny solid so that it didn’t mess up the sprayer of my spray bottle…the lemon vinegar smelled like LEMON, not hint of vinegar smell and the orange vinegar smelled like ORANGE…again, not a single hint of vinegar smell. So I combined the two of them in one bottle to create a citrus cleaner, which I now use full strength for cleaning things like kitchen counters and the bathroom vanity.
Smells great, cleans good, and uses up those pesky lemon peels! Can’t get much thriftier than that 😀
Musings Of A Mountain Mama 
I did this a few months ago. The boys are always asking my if I want to save orange peels now! LOL!
gonna steal your recipe!
DO IT! 😀
What a brilliant idea! I’m going to steal as well.
In other news, I will be heading home shortly, my Grandma has passed. I’m traveling alone. I haven’t traveled in several years, not since all the airport ‘security’ measures have really begun so this should prove interesting.
oh! Sorry to hear about your grandma, was it an easy passing? Watch out for TSA, I hear they can get pretty “fresh” 😛
Grandma was made as comfortable as possible and was surrounded by 5 of her 13 children. She lived to be 92 years and at the time of Grandpas death they had been married 68 years. She passed nearly a month ago, but with family in 4 different countries we planned to gather and have a memorial. I’m just back and am glad to say I had no problem in this country. In fact my only issue was in attempting to board my first flight back, there seamed to be some confusion over my papers – a mix up on their end, but it was soon straightened out and I was able to make the flight.
WOW! God Bless Her! She sounds like she was a marvelous woman…It always warms my heart to hear stories like that, especially since today is my 10th Wedding Anniversay! So glad that the TSA didn’t give you any problems either…
Happy Anniversary to you! I have been truly inspired by my grandparents. Many try to ‘explain’ why they were together so long…divorse wasn’t allowed the majority of their lives, easier to stay together, for the children, etc. All rubbage. They were so in love. One example: there was a television show they enjoyed each day at 5. So at 5 Grandma would make up a small tray of cheese, fruit and biscuits and Grandpa would open a bottle of his homemade wine and they’d sit together and watch it. They wanted to be together. A few years ago Grandma fell and Grandpa felt he couldn’t care for her on his own so they decided to move to an assisted home. There was 1 room available right away, but it was 2 bedrooms. Grandpa said no way! They’d wait for a 1 bedoom saying they’d shared a bed that long they weren’t going to stop then.
wow, that sounds just like me and my husband, we often do something similar in the evening after the kids are in bed and have a beer or glass of wine with a little snack tray….your grandparents story makes me smile, such love is so RARE today!