Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles: Amusing and Useful Techniques for Nontoxic Housekeeping and Gardening

by Ellen Sandbeck

Off with their heads!

Many homemakers and gardeners take the easy way out when it comes to exiling odors and banishing bugs--they use toxic chemicals that may be harmful to their families and the earth. Ellen Sandbeck has discovered that the all-natural alternatives are just as easy and effective to use, and that they are wickedly fun. Sandbeck's way of banishing thistles from her backyard kingdom is a case in she chops off their heads and lets them bleed to death. Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles reveals all of her best tricks. From bedroom to bathroom, garden to lawn, your home will be clean and green and pest-free.

Explode cockroaches with baking soda and sugar

Freshen your car with coffee grounds

Keep out slugs with a bread dough that kills

Armor your plants with soap spray

Grow disease-resistant plants by putting sick ones in your compost pile

Eradicate crayon marks with mayonnaise

Protect your roses with a minefield of garlic

Get rid of raccoons with dirty laundry

Cure plant viruses with spoiled milk

Genres: Gardening, Nonfiction, Plants

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Ellen Sandbeck is an organic landscaper, writer, and graphic artist based in Duluth, Minnesota. Known for humorous writing about sustainable living, she authored Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles and Eat More Dirt while managing a lively household of family and animals.

Reviews

[Leslie]

This book has given me a major complex! Who knew vinegar was the miracle substance of the century. I don't know if it was smart to read this right before I started planting, and killing my weeds with deadly, skin-killing, sex inhibiting, earth hating poisons!
What was I thinking!
Holy crap I'm scared now.

[Eryn]

Favorite Quote: Head lice can be killed by wrapping the afflicted head in a vinegar soaked towel. (Do not remove the head before doing this; it should remain attached to the body, no matter how angry you are at the child for bring lice home!)

[Glenda Tennis]

Wonderful reference for the homeowner and home gardener wanting to embrace nontoxic solutions to pests and problems. Written with humor but not sugar coating the damage that toxic pesticides have done to our land, our children, our animal companions and ourselves.

[bridge]

beautiful and humorous and very spot on about the harms of pesticides and chemicals in the home and garden! solid evidence and meaningful sidebars and I learned a lot :) will be referencing if I get the chance to be a homemaker and gardener!

[Rhonnie Cough]

Good little book to have on hand. I like her voice.

[Astrid]

Good gardening and home care tips written in a humorous manner.

[Michelle]

Another fun read by Sandbeck, a good tabletop book.

[Julie]

Some great little "tips & tricks" without chemicals! Since I'm recently obsessed with my garden, I just loved this one!

[Mcav0y]

great ideas... wondered how effective some of them were. Living in Alaska, we are lucky not to have many of the problems listed, so I will fortunately won't get to try them out any time soon.

[Jenn]

Great book, if you're looking for more non-toxic ways of gardening and house cleaning.... VINEGAR has so many uses! lol

[Randa]

A must read for anyone. As many tips on interior household cleaning formulas as exterior pest solutions.

[Cheri]

An amusing little collection of ideas and things, and certainly a good starting point from which to pursue a variety of options in further depth elsewhere

[Da277]

Informative book with tons of tips on natural solutions to everyday problems.

[Elizabeth]

Green and cheap organic gardening solutions, most of which you've already got in your home.

[Ranunculus]

Somewhat antiquated, but otherwise fun, informative and useful.

[Lily C]

Useful little book