Ethics Trading

How to Grow a Soap nut Tree

First find some seeds. I often find them in my deliveries of soap nuts but I try to take them out so my customers are only paying for the weight of shells. The seeds contain no saponin and are therefore not what my customers want. I do sell soap nut tree seeds, as a novelty, fun item but I don’t guarantee any level of success rate and I don’t recommend growing a soap nut tree in the ground. Please put them in pots as first I don’t know what environmental havoc they might wreak in the UK and second they don’t survive the British winter.

Then put your seed in the freezer. Yes, in the freezer. The seeds seem to need a cold snap before they germinate. Leave them in there for a couple of weeks.

When you get them out pop them into some basic potting compost and leave it on a warm window sill.

In a few weeks (yes it takes ages) you’ll find a spike of green leaves.

The soap nut tree forms gorgeous pale green pinnate leaves and is a beautiful plant. But I caution you all against growing a non native tree in you own soil. Firstly the soap nut tree doesn’t seem to withstand English winters when young, and secondly who knows what ecological havoc they could wreak!

From my own experience, and my own small tree, they like warmth, enjoy sun and cope with short periods of drying out, but hate being waterlogged. While they can cope with cold to an extent and despite needing to be frozen before germination, I’ve managed to kill 3 by leaving them out over the winter, so last years tree had its roots clipped in a partial bonsai and was brought indoors.

They also don’t seem to suffer with greenfly! Actually, that makes a lot of sense, seeing as the liquid cooked out of the berry shells does act as an excellent greenfly preventative - but don’t make it too strong or your plants get all frothy!

Happy planting.

Following on from Linda’s tips there are Ethics Trading’s best seller, the Soap Nut.

Essentially you can do ALL your cleaning using soap nuts. Yes, ALL.  It’s perfectly possible to clean your home, your laundry, car, curtains, children, floors, windows, patio, garden furniture, well everything really. If it gets cleaned with some sort of wet detergent, or detergent and water then soap nuts can do it.

If you need a Soap Nut Solution then the instructions for making one can be found as part of the Soap Nut Information PDF file.

They’re also good in the garden, not only for cleaning your patio and garden furniture, but as an insect repellent. Plants sprayed with a mild soap nut solution have much less green and black fly and don’t get eaten by slugs and snails. In fact, soap nut solution kills slugs and snails while it drives away the greenfly.

How much more versatile can you get?

Soap nuts, the Ultimate in renewable resources, versatile and contributing to the carbon cycle too! 

The sun is shining and warm and we’re just waiting for it to dry the grass a bit more so I can go and mow it.

The soap nut solution does seem to be keeping the seedlings safe from slug, snail and greenfly attacks.  So we’ll be sowing more seeds later on today and hopefully we’ll not lose so many this time!

In other news, The Portal Between is now listed all over the interent - well, on a few notable book shop sites, including Tesco.com and WHSmith. This has inspired 2 new pages on the Ethics Trading site.

The Merchandising page features t-shirts, mugs and bags all with the Portal Between cover. These are printed and dispatched by Spreadshirt and although Ethics Trading earns a small commission we are not responsible for quality or dispatch times. Do let us know what you think though as this may affect our continued use of Spreadshirt.

There is now an Amazon shop linked on the Ethics Trading site.  Again, this is an affiliate scheme and Ethics Trading has no responsibility for any item you purchase through that store. However we do control the content, so if you spot anything unpleasant or that you feel shouldn’t be on there please let us know.

Hope you’re all enjoying the sunshine.  

Soap nut juice kills slugs!

It does, it’s true. We’re discovering more and more uses for soap nuts and the liquid all the time.

How does it work?

The detergent properties in the soap nut solution interfere with the slug’s slime and kill the slug as effectively as salt would.

First you’ll need to make some soap nut solution. Put a handful of shells in a big pan with around a litre of water and warm gently - do Not boil! The froth is messy… You can let it simmer gently for about half an hour and then leave it to stand and steep until cool. 

When you have your juice ready, find yourself a spray bottle and fill it a third full with the juice and top up with water. Try to be gentle or it froths up and makes a mess! Only use the liquid, strain out the used shells or they’ll clog your sprayer.

Then spray the plants you want to protect. There will be a bit of foam on the leaves but don’t worry, it keeps greenfly away as well, and blackfly and whitefly. You will need to rinse out the spray part of your sprayer from time to time as the tiny bits of soap nut shell can get trapped in the tubes and filters.

However, Do Not use this on any carnivorous plants or any plant that prefers a water based insecticide. This IS a detergent and could have adverse effects on some plant species. I’d also recommend that you try not to get too much direct on the soil as it can harm earthworms if present in high enough concentrations or if sprayed directly on them.

(first published on Qassia, adapted for this blog) 

The slugs are eating my plants. This happens every year and I refuse to use pellets. I could get copper tape but it’s expensive. I could go out with a bucket of salt water and collect them every evening but it’s very time intensive and I have other things to be doing.

Now, last time slugs got into the kitchen (I know, yuck) I used soap nut juice in a spray to clean up the slime. So I’ve been wondering if a soap nut juice dose for the plantlets will help.

I’m going to take my greenfly wash and spray the coldframe and the plants inside. I’ll post back in a few days and let you know if it works. It certainly works for greenfly.

Ethics Trading is expanding!

We now have a shop at Climate mall where all our top selling products are listed.  Next phase is to get the essential oils listed on there and then I’d like to find a new product for Ethics Trading, any suggestions?

ClimateMall is an online shopping centre focussed on ethical and green businesses. It’s a one stop shop where you can find a number of retailers, but all sharing the green, ethical and fair trade vision! If you’re a customer then please do wander along for a browse, if you’re a fellow entrepeneur who shares our priorities then please do wander along too, there are plenty of free shops going on there and it looks like being a great place to be.

Also for fellow business owners - I found Quassia recently. If you want to network on Quassia then there’s a sign up button on my page (link above) I look forward to seeing you either on Quassia or in Climate Mall.