This is the third of a three piece series on Bokashi. The first was about using the retail version of Bokashi (at $17 for 2.2 pounds). The second was about making our own (with water, whey from yogurt and blackstrap molasses). And this entry is about the differences between the two, if they worked and which worked best.

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For Sherry’s version, you only need three ingredients – the whey drained from active yogurt, water and blackstrap molasses. Oh, and a fourth thing that doesn’t really seem like an “ingredient” but I suppose it is – newspaper. It’s pretty simple and not much more work than using the storebought variety. I’ve read of people (with more land and food waste than us) making up a 100 pound batch of the stuff once a year. Anyway, these following accounts are very similar to Sherry’s process.

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I married a mad scientist. I swear that someday, whether it’s making beer or fermenting food scraps or heaven knows what, that someday she’s going to blow the house up. But I love this woman, and this is one of the things I love about her.
She’s started composting Bokashi style. Not that we don’t already have a compost bin and a compost tumbler and a worm bin, but only the worm bin is really for food scraps. And we want to throw out as little as possible, so….. Bokashi it is.

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The joys and headaches of gardening are completely accelerated in a container garden. Rewards are faster; problems arrive sooner. But containers can be a real joy, especially for those of us with very limited space. And, depending on the size of the container, you can move your lovely plants around. Sure those flowers may need lots of light, but just for this evening you can move them to the patio where all of your friends are going to be gathering. Move them back in the morning.

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What are chickens doing on a website called A Garden in the City? Well, believe it or not, some cities allow chickens. Of course they put restrictions on the how, where, how many, etc, but they allow them. Our city does. Not on our property, because it’s too small. Our city requires a 150′ setback from the property line, and since ours is only 60′ wide, that pretty much rules out chickens for us (horses only have to have 50′… go figure). Recently, they’ve allowed citizens to apply for a permit to have them on smaller lots (Sherry says “hmmmm”).

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First and foremost, if you compost dog waste, DO NOT use that compost where you’re going to be growing vegetables. Use it for your flower garden (but not where you have edible flowers that you might put on a salad). Along those same lines, put your doggie composting area at least 15 feet from your veggie garden (preferably on the downhill side), since you don’t want contaminates leaching over into your food. This is a CITY gardening post, but if anyone reading this has a well, make sure that you keep it from leaching into your well water. (I would say “Try not to think about it”, but thinking about it is exactly what we need to do. But hey, it beats stepping in it every time you go out back.)

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While reading an excellent website called the Yardstead, I learned about the Dervaes family – a truly remarkable story.
This is the urban garden on steroids. On a lot almost exactly the same size as ours (1/5 of an acre overall, with about 1/10 of an acre available for planting), they manage to produce 6000 pounds of produce per year. SIX THOUSAND POUNDS. They use 6 kilowatts of energy per day. The can, dry, freeze and ferment. They have livestock! AND BEES (wild bees, no less). They conserve water like crazy.

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A few posts ago I mentioned that there were a lot of varieties of worms, from glow in the dark to giants. Okay, here’s proof. This is an earthworm in Ecuador. At first glance it looks like a snake, but upon closer inspection it’s obviously a worm.

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You asked for more photos of our garden art, and we’re pleased to oblige. Of course, so much about a garden is art (not mentioning the plants themselves). The arranging of shades, colors, textures, heights. The things you can do to direct someone’s line of sight. The bending path that leads to something unexpected. All art. Here is more of ours:

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