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Nuts are one of those foods that take a little work to eat. You have to crack or peel away the shell in order to eat a tiny, unfulfilling morsel. Then, hurriedly, with appetite aroused, you force open the next shell in an attempt to satiate your overwhelming craving. And you will repeat this cycle until your famishment is abated or the nut supply is at its end. When your ravenous wolfing spree concludes, you will be stuck with a heaping pile of spent shells. Here's how to reuse them.
- Mulch
Nutshells make great mulch. The shells are already fairly small, but you can grind them up to make them smaller. Some shells are salty. If your garden is having problems with its pH, nutshells might not be a good idea. However, if you are having trouble with slugs, this might be the mulch for you. - Sawdust
You can grind the nutshells up into a sawdust and use this sawdust as insulation. The next time you assemble a shed or a dog house, build an exterior wall and an interior wall with a thin gap between the two. Fill this gap with insulation. Nutshell-based sawdust can be your insulation. - Grit Your Path
Nutshells can be a great way to gain traction on ice in the winter. Sprinkle old nutshells on your walkway if the ice is too thick to break up. - Arts and Crafts
You can paint the shells or you can drill holes in them and make earrings. Draw simple faces on them. They can be an outlet for artsy creativity. There are people out there who like to put nutshells in capped-off toilet paper rolls and make noisemakers for kids. - Plant Drainage
Instead of lining the bottom of your potted plants with rocks, you can use nutshells. Salt may be a problem again. Thoroughly soak salty shells before using them on your house plants. - Fuel for a Pellet Stove
Some pellet stoves can burn nutshells in an eco-friendly way. Check your owner's manual. - Packing Peanuts
You can save your shells and use them as a loose-fill packing material. This will protect the fragile things that you mail. - Compost
A lot of people say that compost should be a last resort, but I disagree. I think that compost is more practical than using nutshells in crafts or making jewelry out of them, not that there is anything wrong with that. It's just that composting rids you of your nutshells immediately. If you turn the nutshells into jewelry or paint cats on them, you have to ask yourself if you want to keep a nutshell bracelet with cat pictures on it for the rest of your life? If you turn the nutshells into a noisemaker for the kids, you're still going to have to deal with those nutshells when your kids grow up. In nature, the nuts would fall out of the tree and the shells would eventually compost. By composting the shells, you are just putting them back where they belong.
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