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Gardening

Find tips and tricks to make your garden or allotment flourish on our Gardening forum.

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Original poster

Boring you about bokashi composting

45 replies

shovetheholly · 14/04/2015 09:24

So a year ago, I started doing this new method of composting, and it's fabulous.

It's called a bokashi system, and the great thing about it is that you can put all of your food waste in it - not just peelings but cooked food and meat. Everything, in fact, except teabags for some reason. I'm veggie but I had an elderly and unwell cat, who would leave a lot of food, and I was chucking out loads of cat food. This system let me compost it instead.

You basically have a small bin with a lid, with a tap at the bottom. You empty your food waste into it, and press it down with a plastic tool. Then you sprinkle a small amount of a special bran on top and cover it. You repeat until the bin is full, then you leave it to sit for 3-4 weeks.

You then drain the bin with the tap - I generally get over a litre of fluid. This niffs a bit but it is spectacular plant food. You dilute it a great deal (about 15 ml to a watering can) and it makes your plants grow like billy-oh, especially veg.

When you look in the bin (holding your nose), the food waste is all petrified. It can be dumped into a compost bin and then covered with other waste or you can dig it straight into the ground to give new plants a boost.

The bin doesn't smell at all, because it's covered tight, though you do get a pong when you open it! You can buy them online, or alternatively make your own.

OP posts:

catsofa · 12/04/2016 11:16

Bokashi, not Boshaki, oops!

Original poster

shovetheholly · 12/04/2016 11:23

Rats ARE interested in the bins, but they can't get in because they are completely sealed (the system excludes air, so is anaerobic).

However, what bokashi leaves you with is a box of compacted, pickled waste and some nutritious run-off - not broken down compost. I usually bury this in my allotment (burying it quite deep to stop foxes smelling it), though it can also be composted. As with most city areas, there are rats round here but they don't seem at all interested in the contents of my bins post-pickling when I do compost them.

OP posts:

Original poster

shovetheholly · 12/04/2016 11:24

Sorry, that post was REALLY unclear!

Let's give it another go.

I think rats would be interested in the raw waste. But the box is sealed while it pickles so they can't get to it.

Once the waste is all pickled, they don't seem interested at all.

OP posts:

DoreenLethal · 12/04/2016 18:56

Good news on the Bokashi front.

I had a stinky sink - we have tried everything and I was close to taking the u-bend apart but after one application of the Bokashi juice, the stink has gone!

Ace.

catsofa · 12/04/2016 20:42

Ok sounds good on the rat front. Do I need two bins so the full one can sit and pickle for a while when full? Could I use any airtight container with a tap (I think I have a beer barrel somewhere)? How much do you spend on the bran and how long does it last?

guerre · 13/04/2016 11:46

Also, may I ask whether you can food that has gone off? (But I'm thinking that may be a v silly question, as it is all meant to be rotting?)

Original poster

shovetheholly · 13/04/2016 13:30

Yay Doreen - that's brilliant!! (Must give it a go next time I have that problem!!)

cats - yes, it works better with two for exactly that reason. However, you might want to start with just one and see how you get on with it first! Two can be quite an investment (though there are some very good tutorials on how to make them yourself).

guerre - no, not a silly question at all! You CAN use food that has gone off. However, for some reason that I really don't understand, you cannot bokashi bran teabags. Go figure!!

OP posts:

HapShawl · 13/04/2016 13:35

I got two as a Christmas present (my family think I'm weird). I am loving it as we don't have a lot of space for composting so this means I'm using the scraps. The only thing I've found is that the lids don't seem to be as airtight as they claim but it doesn't seem to halt the process

Original poster

shovetheholly · 13/04/2016 13:57

That's brilliant hapshawl! The bokashi cult is spreading!!

It sucks about your lids though. I suspect this may be one of those things that varies a bit from brand to brand - essentially, they are just plastic boxes with a tap on the bottom and a lid so I guess there are loads of permutations of that design!! I hope a rock on top will stop anything getting in?

OP posts:

HapShawl · 13/04/2016 16:54

Yes a brick on top seems to do the trick. I'm not sure how anaerobic it is though. I meant to say in my previous post though - it was your evangelism on this thread a year ago where I learnt about it!

Original poster

shovetheholly · 13/04/2016 16:59

I think at the start the anaerobic part may be largely at work in the compressed stuff towards the bottom of the bin IYSWIM. Mine came with a pushy tool that you could used to squash it all down!! Even when mine is totally full, there tend to be slight gaps at the top, so maybe your lids don't matter that much!! The stuff further down is always pickled in spite of this - it looks quite strange to see it all looking surprisingly preserved after a few weeks!

It makes me feel good to reuse cooked waste and the cat food. My grandmother regularly every ten minutes delivers lectures on the theme of 'waste not, want not', so I am programmed to feel miserable binning things like that.

OP posts:

HapShawl · 13/04/2016 19:14

Yes I have the pushy down thing. I am so delighted to talk to someone else about it! Dp is bored of it and colleagues squicked out (lightweights)

guerre · 13/04/2016 21:09

Thank you shove. Now I just have to work out what I'm going to do with all the tea bags I think DH gets through about 10 cups a day!

TheSpottedZebra · 13/04/2016 21:16

If you empty the tea out of the bags, would that work?
As the bags aren't always paper anymore, now sometimes they're plastic.

guerre · 14/04/2016 00:29

Maybe tea is too acidic though? We have paper tea bags AFAIAA (clipper).

IndridCold · 14/04/2016 09:51

I got my bokashi bins about three years ago, but then last year I got a green cone and have been using that instead.

You are supposed to fill up the green cone and then leave it for a year, so I haven't decided whether to get another green cone, or go back to the bokashi for that year.

DoreenLethal · 24/04/2016 11:35

I've still got a lovely smelling sink

I've just drained off the bokashi juice and will be using it to give our new lawn path a feed. Bit fruity, that juice. Whifferama!

Original poster

shovetheholly · 25/04/2016 09:17

Yep, it's strong, isn't it doreen?! I now keep all my jam jar lids

zebra - I dump leaf tea in there (DH has a lot of Chinese students so we have a constant supply!!) and it breaks down no problem. I think it must be something in the paper, though if it's unbleached, perhaps that would make a difference? Aren't clipper teabags unbleached guerre?

Indrid - I am impressed by the idea of a green cone! I don't think I have anywhere to put one at home though as they need sun - the bane of a north-facing garden.

Hapshawl - I once talked to my colleague about compost over lunch, only to find that she somehow lost her appetite when I mentioned worms and centipedes I guess it's not for everyone!!

OP posts:

OhHolyJesus · 15/12/2018 16:10

Hi @shovetheholly, I'm looking into this now, I'm interested to know where you get your bran from and if you had any subsidies from your council?

I haven't read through the whole thread but I'm going to go back it now, I feel like I can learn a lot from you!

Trethew · 15/12/2018 19:11

This thread is two and a half years old, and sadly Shove seems to have left Mumsnet

Suggest you start a new thread of your own

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