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.

Anytime I hear of some Japanese way of doing something, the first thing I think is “thousands of years old”.  Well, not Bokashi.  Bokashi, or at least the idea behind it, goes back to the late 70’s.

Here’s the idea.  EM (effective micro-organisms) are basically specific bacteria and yeast that aid and speed up the fermenting and breaking down of organic matter.  Supposedly, with the Bokashi method, it does it in a matter of weeks and without the smell of rotting vegetation.  You can keep it in the house.  If you keep it outside, then the lack of smell keeps it from attracting vermin. And, unlike the worm bin, you can put just about anything in the Bokashi compost.  Meat, fruit, bones, table scraps, aging leftovers, anything.  Good idea if it works, and so far it seems to be working.

Now I find this a little strange:  after the four weeks of fermenting in your bucket, the material isn’t so much decayed as “pickled”.  So it still has the shape of whatever you put in there.  You can still see the banana peel and the apple core.  But four weeks after you put it in the ground, it should be completely broken down and ready for planting.  The bone too?   I doubt it, but we’re vegetarians so we won’t be able to tell you about that.  Now if you don’t want the “food shapes” in your compost, you could always put the scraps in the food processor.  That would also speed up the process, I suspect.

There is also a byproduct.  It’s a liquid run-off that, like the liquid from the worm bin, can be used as a liquid fertilizer.

Sherry is doing Bokashi  both ways.  For the first batch, she using storebought Bokashi mix.  For Round Two, she’s making her own formula (well, of course she is -  she’s a mad scientist).  For both experiments, she’s using a home made bucket rather than the fancy one.  The main differences in the buckets are looks and the fact that where the fancy one has a spigget, ours has a hole with a wine bottle cork for a plug.

I’ve included several links to websites explaining Bokashi and how to use it.  Since you’re going to read them anyway, I won’t reinvent the wheel here and rehash all of that information.

First, here are two Wikipedia entries.  The first explains EM.  The second explains Bokashi composting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_microorganism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_composting

This next site uses the store version of the Bokashi bucket and starter and has lots of great step by step photos of how it’s done.

http://kitchengardenfoods.com/2006/02/20/bokashi/

Here’s an Australian website that also walks you through it (with video) and has other pertinent information.

http://www.bokashi.com.au/Bokashi-Instructions.htm

The next post will be about saving money by making your own Bokashi mix.

Filed under: Composting, Our Garden, Soil Amendment, Uncategorized