Bokashi 101

When Drew was in The Philippines at the beginning of the year he came across a composting method called Bokashi. He was so impressed by what he saw and the quality and results of the method.

We have talked on and off about it since he came home and we recently bought a kit to see what sort of results we can get ourselves.

I have photographed everything, including the brochures, so that if I ever lose them I have it all here.

The kit included the liquid bokashi; we bought the bran mix as well and have been using it rather than the liquid.

The process is very straightforward. Put the scraps in the bin, throw a handful of bran over them, press down and compact with the supplied trowel, replace lid tightly - and wait.

This is the test garden. We had planned on removing this garden because when we came here I didn't want to have too big an area to look after. After having a huge garden at the old house, which became unmanageable once I returned to full-time work, I only want to garden (ie bushes and flowers) in a certain area which didn't include this one. However, as we haven't removed it yet (!) it's become the Bokashi Kitchen Garden. It's had no attention in the last 3 years and the soil is pretty crappy so it will be a good test of the qualities of the product. Having the garden so close to the house is a bit of a bonus as well.

The boys at work.

The Bokashi Kid inspecting and adding to the bucket.

Liquid Gold. It smells like vomit. It's very potent. You only need to use a teaspoon to 5 litres!

The scraps themselves don't smell bad/off/rotten at all.

The first test crop is lettuce.

The idea is to use the liquid as it collects and to bury the scraps once the bucket is full and they've sat for a while.