11 Things Landscapers Do Not Want You to Know About Baking Soda (The Lunch Lady Way)

A crew with a trailer will charge you a few hundred dollars to clear the weeds out of a brick patio and refill the joints. The orange box by my back door costs about a dollar. That same box scrubbed my steam table for thirty-five years in a Scioto County, Ohio, school kitchen, where four hundred children a day called me Mrs. Doris. Here are eleven outdoor jobs people give baking soda, and an honest grade on every one of them. Some of these work. Some of them do nothing at all. ⚠️ WHAT THE BOX SHOULD NEVER DO: do not use it around azaleas or blueberries. It is not a lawn weed killer and it is not a fertilizer. Test it on colored or sealed stone first. Every pinch you put outdoors is sodium, and it stays in the dirt. This week: pick one job off this list and do it with a box, a brush and a kettle. Then tell me in the comments which one fooled you longer, the fizz or the flowers, and add your county. I am a retired school cook and a lifelong home gardener, not a landscaper. For anything bigger than a skillet fire, get out and call 911. #BakingSoda #GardenTips #OldFashioned