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bokashi composting

POTAWIE

POTAWIE

Anybody try composting with bokashi? I've become quite interested in it lately.
Its basically just innoculating your kitchen scraps with a starter culture which ferments and accelerates breakdown of the organic matter. This is often done in a bucket and should not smell like most indoor compost pails but the finished product will only look pickled and will probably need further composting.
I presently have a worm bin but I don't have enough worms yet for the amount of kitchen scraps that my family produces so I'm starting a couple bokashi pails to do the preliminary composting. I'm also hoping to eventually(Spring) innoculate my outdoor compost bin and my huge piles of leaves and old soil from pots.
There's lots of info on the net about inoculating carriers like bran or wheat to use in the bucket but presently I'm trying to innoculate newspaper with a very inexpensive home-made starter culture like in the link below. It seems quite easy and its nearly free. Other methods use EM(effective micro-organisms) as a starter, but they must be purchased.

http://bokashicomposting.com/
 
Sounds cool potawie. I have been thinking about doing compost for some time i like the pail idea as well. I will prob be asking for some advice in the hopefully not soo long future:)
 
I have 2 bokashi bins, 2 worm farms, and a compost tumbler.

Trying to get a bit of a rotation system happening, most scraps go in the bokashi bin, the leftovers go in the worm farm. Once the first bokashi bin is full, I let it ferment for a while longer and start filling the second one.

I've been trying to introduce the bokashi waste that is fermented to the worm farm. If you don't mix it with some browns (ie. shredded newspaper etc.), it gets extremely claggy and the worms hate it.

I reckon I might be onto something now though, as long as you put little bits of bokashi into the worm farm and mix thoroughly with newspaper or cardboard, the worms seem to accept it a bit more.

And the stuff does stink when you take the lid off, to the point it makes my missus gag. With the lid on, its fine to keep in the house. I can tolerate the smell of a worm farm, I can't of a bokashi bin ;)
 
I always thought fermentation was slow inefficient process compared to what aerobic microbes can do. And supposedly you get more smell fermenting.
 
I just noticed this.
Thanks for starting the thread.

http://bokashicomposting.com/ is my website.

I learned a long time ago that low temperature composting is the way to compost when maximum available nutrients are the goal.

I got started with vermiculture (composting worms) a long time ago, vermiculture ALWAYS produces compost far superior to high heat (aerobic) methods.

Bokashi compliments vermiculture.

I noticed at a neighbors farm a few years ago that compost worms were thriving in corn silage that had spilled down around the outside of the silo, I had always read that acidity was bad for worms and that they wouldn't do well in low PH, turns out that was a lie, not only were they thriving they were converting the fermented silage into castings at a rapid rate.
It wasn't long after that that I stumbled upon the bokashi thing while searching composting videos on youtube.
I immediately said to myself, all this is is ensiling, it was then that I started experimenting.
So, not only is the bokashi broken down fairly rapidly by the worms, the waste is also stabilized for long periods of time so I can ration it out to the worms. I only wish I had more worms to work with.

There are other advantages.....bokashi is impregnated with digestive bacteria, mostly lactobacillus so it breaks down very rapidly.....convenience.....there are minimal foul smells......no fruit flies or other varmints.......for those living in colder climates the stabilized bokashi compost can be banked in winter months and added to worm bins, regular compost piles or buried in the ground or containers in the spring...to name a few.......


~DiggingDog
 
Hi DiggingDogFarm,

I think I stumbled across your website when reading up on bokashi some time ago, but I havent got around to making my own newspaper bokashi yet.

You mention that your worms thrived on adding bokashi to the worm farm. Did you mix anything with it at all, or did you just put small bits in at a time and let them fend for themselves?

I found with my bokashi in the worm farm, it tends to compact and get real slushy. If you add something like shredded newspaper etc. and mix it in, it tends to prevent that from happening, and the worms love it. With the compacted bokashi, whenever adding water in the worm farm, the worms couldnt move away from it fast enough.

Also, whats your views on meat in bokashi, especially if you plan on adding it to a worm farm later?
 
MiLK_MaN said:
Hi DiggingDogFarm,

I think I stumbled across your website when reading up on bokashi some time ago, but I havent got around to making my own newspaper bokashi yet.

You mention that your worms thrived on adding bokashi to the worm farm. Did you mix anything with it at all, or did you just put small bits in at a time and let them fend for themselves?

I found with my bokashi in the worm farm, it tends to compact and get real slushy. If you add something like shredded newspaper etc. and mix it in, it tends to prevent that from happening, and the worms love it. With the compacted bokashi, whenever adding water in the worm farm, the worms couldnt move away from it fast enough.

Also, whats your views on meat in bokashi, especially if you plan on adding it to a worm farm later?
Click to expand...


I add the bokashi to the worm bins a little bit at a time.
My bins have a large surface area so I've never had a problem with them refusing it.

Meat is fine in small amounts.


~DiggingDog
 
I recently picked a nature mill comoster for the house and it fit nice and neat where the trash compactor used to be. It has a small motor that rotates the compost and is heated so all my scraps go into that and a few days later it lets me know when they are ready and I empty them from the bottom. The next step is taking those scraps add a bit of leaves or newspaper and my old soil and I put it into the worm bin. I bought about 5 lbs of worms so they go through them pretty fast. I figure it takes about a week for them to go through a tray. Once they are done with that I put the finished worm compost / soil into a large trash can and leave it in the sun. I plan on using that next year in my pots with about 25% new soil. The composter ran about $250 from costco on sale, but it really speeds up the process and is right in the kitchen so no huge bin I have to tumble.
 
I'm planning on trying bokashi pretty soon. I already picked up 5 pounds of bran from this place:
http://embokashi.com/

I have more research to do, but I think mixing bokashi with my used soil and sealing it up for two weeks will allow me to reuse it.

The nature's mill composter looks great too, I'm just waiting for a price drop.
 
I'm planning on trying bokashi pretty soon. I already picked up 5 pounds of bran from this place:
http://embokashi.com/

I have more research to do, but I think mixing bokashi with my used soil and sealing it up for two weeks will allow me to reuse it.

The nature's mill composter looks great too, I'm just waiting for a price drop.
 
Bump...

Finally got up and running. A 5 gallon bucket is filled up and fermenting. I'd love to hear how people are getting their bran. I'm not finding much better than 5lbs for $15. Although I think I can make my own Lacto culture, it's got to be much easier on a large scale.
 
My 2nd bucket is just about filled and I'll need some more bran soon. Here's my bucket setup:
IMG_9049.jpg

IMG_9051.jpg


It was so easy to make:
Gamma Seal Lid
5 gallon bucket w/ holes on the bottom
5 gallon bucket

I didn't add a drain, and so far I don't need one. It's easy enough to take out the inner bucket and dump the outer.

I use a garbage bag, 2 gallon bucket lid and brick on the inside to press down and seal the ferment. The Gamma Seal is airtight too.
 
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