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Benefits of decomposing old melon rinds in the soil.

 
Blake Lenoir
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Greetings folks! I wanna find out how watermelon rinds benefit the soil after they decompose. Should we avoid the ones being sprayed by pesticides and use the ones grown we grew on our own or use organic ones? I never tried no melon rinds to the soil to enrich it, but I'll look into it. Please reach me if you all need me. Out!
 
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When I raised red wriggler composting worms, they would go hog-wild for melon scraps.

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Blake Lenoir
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Could wild worms feast on old rinds too?
 
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I have always composed melon rinds. I don’t know that there is any specific benefit, but they break down fine.
 
Blake Lenoir
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Very well. Any other ways to use old rinds besides for composting?
 
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I just chunk them up and bury them in the ground. Something eats them, usually worms. Any organic material improves the soil in the long run.
I prefer to use good clean produce scraps, but the reality is I don't get that much, so I use what I have, which is often conventionally grown. Your lines of what you consider acceptable may differ from mine.

As for what else can be done with them, I cook with them!   Concept Cooking: Watermelon rind experiments: Spoiler alert: they worked WELL!  There are links in the first post to recipes for people who use them, the rest of the post is my experiments, since I don't use recipes.

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Pickles.

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Douglas Alpenstock
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Carla Burke wrote:Pickles.


Wait, what??

We want details! Dish it on this dish!
 
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Watermelon rind pickles have been a southern pantry staple, for... I've no idea how long, honestly. This is a fairly classic recipe:
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/watermelon-rind-pickles/

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Besides pickles, there’s also candy, stir fry, curry, and bhaji. Basically, as long as the rind is thick enough, you can consider it a vegetable.
 
Douglas Alpenstock
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Melody Goretti wrote:Besides pickles, there’s also candy, stir fry, curry, and bhaji. Basically, as long as the rind is thick enough, you can consider it a vegetable.


Wow, that's amazing. The ones we get aren't from fresh from the garden though; they've been in transit for a while.

But I sense a hint of consensus -- watermelon rinds are a fine vegetable for worms and everybody else up the food chain?
 
Melody Goretti
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I say: absolutely. For most applications for human consumption, I would take a peeler to the toughest outer layer of skin and those bits can go directly to worms or compost. But I’ve seen recipes for human food that don’t specify removing that part either.
 
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You can also lacto ferment the peeled rinds in a brine, similar to making cucumber pickles.

Mine cam out too salty, but I can imagine that next time, with lots of dill and garlic, they'd be decent, and they don't turn to mush, as cucumbers tend to do for me.
 
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Alina Green wrote:You can also lacto ferment the peeled rinds in a brine, similar to making cucumber pickles.

Mine cam out too salty, but I can imagine that next time, with lots of dill and garlic, they'd be decent, and they don't turn to mush, as cucumbers tend to do for me.



This reminds me - you can also make watermelon rind vinegar with them. I can't tell you how good it is, because I've only tried it once (so far), and the entire gallon batch got knocked onto the floor, before I got to try it. 🤬🤬🤬

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The pickles are great.  I use the same spices I use to make pickled peaches, so they have that same flavor,  with allspice and cinnamon.  Plenty of recipes online.  

With appropriate microbes, minerals and organic matter, there is no need for pesticides or herbicides.

 
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