Soap-nut pods
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Whilst walking in a Botanical Garden, I came across a tree that dropped strange big seed pods. It tickled my imagination and I managed to find the name of the tree – SOAPNUT TREE (Shepherdia Canadensis) pods used for making natural low-sud detergents (called Saponin).
Seeing that these pods will just land in the refuse bin, I picked a few up and decided to test if it will work. I took some photos too of this new experiment.
I’ve poured boiling hot water over the few hard-coated seed pods, and after shaking it a while, the mixture of water and pods produced some foamy suds. So it seems that it will make a lovely 100% chemical-free, natural low-sud laundry detergent. My suggestion would be to place these pods in a home-made 40% shade-net draw-string bag so it makes the job of laundering easier, and these pods can be used over and over again for a number of washes. You may try using this pod-bag in your washing machine – but I did it by hand and was pleasantly surprised.
Apparently Soapnut trees grow in tropical regions – probably came from overseas as well. To grow the tree from a pod, perhaps requires a long time of soaking in cool water (or trying gently to peel the extreme hard and thick layer off the pod to expose its inner part to hasten the germinating time). Push the seedpod just under some damp and well mixed potting soil, compost and river-sand to give it the best chance of germinating into a sapling. Plant the sapling out in a sunny spot and wait perhaps seven years for it to bear like an avocado tree? Just think how much money you can save having such a valuable tree in your garden; money that you usually spent on laundry detergents, as well as money spent to relieve some of the allergies people get from chemical products too. You may even develop some facial liquid soap and shampoo for allergic people too.
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