How to Start Your Seedlings Indoors the FoodCycler™ Way with a Food Waste Recycler

Mar 3, 2023

Now that we’ve (almost!) survived the long winter slog, spring is finally on the horizon. That means it’s nearly time to start your seedlings indoors.

And with that comes the perfect opportunity to make use of the food scraps you’ve been collecting throughout the winter months. So, in this blog, we’ll tell you how to start your seedlings the FoodCycler™ way.

Grab a notebook – there’s a lot to take in!

A close-up, top-down view of organic kitchen scraps being prepared for composting. The pile includes crushed eggshells, carrot peelings, green bell pepper slices, red onion skins, and leafy green herb stems. Fine dark coffee grounds are sprinkled across the various vegetable remnants.

The Benefit of Adding Soil Amendment From Your Countertop Food Waste Recycler to Your Seedlings

If you're new to gardening you can be forgiven for wondering why FoodCycler™ is so passionate about adding soil amendment, AKA Foodilizer™, to soil.

So, let’s run you through 3 simple benefits:

Foodilizer™ is nutrient rich, delivering a hearty dose of goodness to your seedlings via the soil. This includes phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen, as well as tons of micronutrients.

You can get away with watering your seedlings less frequently! Foodilizer™ retains moisture, meaning there’s always water available, reducing the risk of dehydration.

You relish the feel-good factor in putting your kitchen waste to use instead of going to landfills and releasing methane gas into the atmosphere.

A terracotta-colored compost bin with a wooden handle is filled with organic kitchen waste. Carrot peelings, leafy green stems, and eggshells overflow from the top of the container. The bin sits on a light-colored wooden surface against a neutral, minimalist background.

The Best Food Scraps to Add Into FoodCycler

FoodCycler’s can break down a wide range of food scraps, from fruit and vegetable cuttings, to bones, shells, and meats. But simply recycling your food waste doesn’t necessarily mean your seedlings will benefit.

Seedlings will thrive with the nutrients provided by healthy, whole, and organic foods, whereas salty, sugary, processed, or fatty foods can harm the roots and inhibit growth¹.

If in doubt, you can think of your Foodilizer™ as your seedling’s 5-a-day – the healthier, the better!

A woman in a white t-shirt and jeans stands in a bright kitchen, placing the lid onto a sleek, gray countertop electric composter. Fresh vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, and kale, are arranged on the counter in front of the appliance.

6 Steps to Start Your Seedlings with a FoodCycler

A bright, minimalist wooden desk features a laptop, a notebook with a pencil, and several potted plants. A small succulent in a white pot is in the foreground, with larger leafy plants like a rubber tree and a palm blurring into the background.

1. Find a Bright Location

Seedlings typically require 12-16 hours of light a day, but depending on the time of year, that can be tricky. If you have a windowsill that benefits from a constant stream of sunlight, this is an ideal spot²! However, it’s wise to move the seedlings at night to protect them from colder temperatures. Alternatively, you can use supplemental lighting.

A close-up view of several young green seedlings growing in recycled cardboard tubes used as starter pots. The pots are filled with dark soil and arranged closely together, showing vibrant green leaves under warm, natural light.

2. Source Growing Containers

Next, your seedlings will need a home! You can use small pots or simply recycle items you already have, such as yogurt pots, toilet paper rolls, or egg cartons. Just remember to add a hole in the bottom for water drainage.

A person sits cross-legged on a floor covered in protective paper, repotting plants. They are using a small hand tool to move dark soil from a white bag into a clear plastic container. Several small succulent pots and a large snake plant surround them.

3. Prepping the Soil

You should begin the soil prep process with a fresh soil mix suitable for seedlings. Reusing soil from your garden can put your seedlings at risk of disease, compromising their growth – you want your seedlings to be as healthy as possible.

Once your seedlings have established growth, you can combine your homemade soil amendment from your countertop food waste recycler with your soil, at a ratio of 1 part Foodilizer to 20 parts soil. This is because kitchen waste produces an impressive amount of nitrogen. With too much nutrient matter in the mix, it’s possible to “burn” your plants before they have a chance to spring to life.

At FoodCycler™, we recommend using a plastic bin to prep your soil. This helps you to achieve the right measurements, plus its small size is perfect for planting indoor seedlings.

The Countertop Food Waste Recycler Foodilizer™ Rule of Thumb

Did you know? Your soil’s existing bacteria loves to feast on tasty bio-matter produced from the Foodilizer™ in your indoor food waste recycler. Although not essential, we recommend adding your seedlings to the Foodilized soil a day or two following the addition of your homemade soil amendment.

The FoodCycler™ FC-50 and the new FoodCycler™ ECO-5, are electric food waste recycler machines that can break down food scraps to a fraction of the original volume in a matter of hours. So, you don’t even need to wait around to begin the curing process!

4. Adding the Soil

The next step is to take your chosen container and add the Foodilizer™-soil mix. Fill it almost to the top and pat down gently, removing unwanted air pockets. It’s best to provide the mix with a little water, leaving it to drain before adding your seedlings.

5. Sowing Your Seedlings

Carefully sprinkle your seeds on top of the prepared Foodilizer™-soil mix. Unless they’re really tiny and therefore hard to hold between your fingers, you should be able to leave a few centimeters between each one. Then it’s time to add a thin layer of Foodilizer™-soil mix, pressing gently to allow the seeds to touch the soil.

A person in a blue long-sleeve shirt prepares to plant seeds at a white table. They are reaching for seeds in a small bowl, with stacks of biodegradable peat pots, a bag of potting soil, and various indoor plants nearby in a sunlit room.

6. Encouraging Seedling Growth

You can use a plastic bag to cover each pot, ensuring the food waste recycler stays moist and encourages plant growth by retaining the ideal temperature. When you’re done, place your seeds on a windowsill or underneath supplemental lighting.

A macro, low-angle shot of a tiny, bright green sprout emerging from dark, textured soil. The seedling has one small leaf unfurling, with a second tiny stem just beginning to hook out of the earth.

7. The Last Steps

As soon as you can see your seedlings have established growth of a few centimetres, remove the plastic bag. They should stay like this until the second pair of leaves emerge, when you can transfer your seedlings to a seed tray, leaving a few centimetres between each one. Wait a few weeks, or until the plant gets significantly bigger, before moving to a large individual pot and placing outside. When transferring your seedlings to their forever home, you can add more Foodilizer to your soil to re-up on the key nutrients that will help them grow even stronger by mixing in another 1:20 of soil amendment!

And voila – you have successfully helped your seedlings grow the FoodCycler™ way with a countertop food waste recycler!

Not sure whether a countertop food waste recycler or compost alternative is right for you? We’re pretty sure your seedlings (and your garden) will thank you for it – plus, it makes your job as a gardener that little bit easier.

Why not check out FoodCycler’s food waste recyclers? With three models to choose from, each boasting a different bucket capacity, you can find the right one for your household!

References

1 - Iowa State University. (2020). Gardening While Isolated: Fertilizing Your Seedlings. [online] Available at: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/gardening-while-isolated-fertilizing-your-seedlings#:~:text=Seedlings%20should%20be%20fertilized%20after,as%202-2-3. [Accessed 10 Oct. 2024].

2 - Iowa State University. (2024). How to Successfully Start Seed Indoors. [online] Available at: https://yardandgarden.extension.iastate.edu/how-to/how-successfully-start-seed-indoors [Accessed 10 Oct. 2024].

A Note on Terminology

The FoodCycler® is a countertop electric food waste recycler that breaks down food scraps through a mechanical process into a dry, lightweight by-product that can be used in gardening applications as a soil amendment. The FoodCycler® and other electric food waste recyclers are not composters, nor do they produce compost or soil as they do not require additional microbes to break down food waste with bacteria. However, the term "electric composter" has been used to describe electric food waste recyclers.