What to do with watermelon seeds and rind
 Watermelon rind ready for composting. If only I knew! It is summer here in beautiful Cape Town and it’s watermelon and mango time! Two of my ultimate favourites of the season. It is wonderful to eat according to the rhythm of the seasons. Always something wonderful to look forward to. We purchased a beautiful FAT watermelon this morning and after a lot of ‘mmmmm oh my gosh, is this ridiculously sweet or what!?’ We felt complete bliss and a bit in love with this sweet gorgeous thing.  Watermelon in my fridge... best take out ever! After cutting the rest of the watermelon, we were left with loads of rind and pips. Ready for the compost bin! But then I thought, ‘what else are these babies good for’ ‘What else could I possibly do with watermelon pips and rind? After some ‘Googling’ I found a-m-azing! ideas. Who would have thought? Now the funny thing is that most of you probably know about these already, but I just had no idea! Apparently you can fry it, roast it, juice it and drive your car with it (i.e. create ethanol with it). Recycling ideas with watermelon rind and seeds1. You can make tea with the seeds. Whaaat? Yip, I felt the same way. You grind the pips fine and add boiling water and strain. 2. You can drizzle the pips with a bit of oil and spices and roast them or dehydrate. What an idea! 3. You can make watermelon preserve or pickles with the white rind. Have to try this. Link to recipe. 4. Juice the chlorophyll rind and add to other juices or smoothies for a health kick. Watermelons are super healthy too. The rind and seeds even more so. Here we are throwing those away as scrap, meanwhile you can make a whole extra meal with it and give your kids super nutrition. I’ve read that in China it is considered medicinal. From sorting out worms in your gut to erectile uhm dysfunction to heart conditions to arthritis. Google it, you’ll be amazed. Lots of ‘watermelon’ love!  Watermelon Seed Tea  Watermelon rind preserve/jam Resources:
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Now I just need to face my fears of the killer watermelons
I tried to find out if you could roast and eat melon seeds a while ago, but came up with nohting, I’m glad you’ve found out, I can save them now (although all melons in the UK are imported and we don’t buy them very often, at least I’ll be making the very most of them if we do!)…you can also put holes in the seeds when they’re just out of the melon and still soft, wash them and let them harden then string them on thread to make jewelery…I made some when I was younger, it was really pretty! (bit like this http://jewelrymaking.craftgossip.com/organic-jewelry-from-melon-seeds/2010/09/10/ )
This is totally amazing Sooz. I had some pumpkin seeds drying on my windowsill and thought to give your suggested link a go! Totally rad! We painted the seeds and made a bracelet! Thanks so much for the idea… as usual, so much to learn.
Perfect to keep the kids occupied during holidays…
Oh yey! Glad you liked the idea! Lovely fiddly job to keep the littlies quiet for a while!
Aww, LOL, how can you assume we know ANY of those things??
LOL!!
Interesting – never heard of these ways before!!! If you can provide any links, that would be even more awesome! (Like yeah, what is the tea/rind supposed to be good for, health-wise, etc.)
We just started growing our own watermelons this year (to avoid plastic waste in stores and um, to experiment
), surprisingly some were yummy!! 
And YOU HAVE SUMMER NOW!! Lucky yous!! (We have grey non-weather!!) GO YOU!!
Hi Layla, thanks so much for stopping by! I’m glad I’m not the only one who didn’t know about the fab things you can do with a watermelon waste!
I did give links at the end of the post under resources… if i haven’t made the tea or preserves etc I don’t like to post the recipe on my site. I’ll do that once i’ve actually tried them. I just wanted to share those three links!
Thanks for sharing the love and I see we are on a similar journey! I’ve also recently moved to trying family cloth… interesting transitions in this house… totally!
It’s so much fun ‘meeting’ like minded people/friends.
xxx