I found a picture of Anke’s bucket on Flickr and provided some advice to her. This is a DIY bucket that a company makes but also provides details on how to make your own.

After I sent her the instructions I usually give to clients, Anke decided start the process over and document it. Links to my website & blog are in the pic of the bucket with foil tape on it.

bokashi - a set on Flickr

Update: Anke added a post on her blog

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Within twelve hours of responding to a blog post about the same topic, I received this email:

I’m trying to find out if chicken bones are okay in my bokashi bucket (hope so cause I already put them in). You said chicken is fine, so how about the bones?…If bones are not okay, should I go to the trouble to dig them out? How
should I best compost bones?

My response [from the blog comments]:

If everything is smelling of fermenting, then you are doing the right things.

But fermentation is not composting. The food wastes added to your bokashi bucket may not look much different than when they went in. but their chemical structure has change completely.

It is when your bokashi food waste goes into your compost heap that the real composting begins. Bones do take longer to break down but in my experience, they become soft and pliable after several weeks/months in the compost.

Will they disappear? Eventually. If you want to make that happen faster, the best thing I can suggest is to break the bones into smaller pieces when you put them in your bokashi bucket.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,

Al

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It is official. I have 16 days at the Vancouver Farmers Market this year. Eight days each at Kitsilano & Riley Park. You can see a schedule on the right, but for the record, here are the days:

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If you are in the Vancouver network on Facebook you can join the Farmers Market group page here and their fan page here.

I also have a fan page on Facebook: Great Day Bokashi

J. received a bokashi bucket as part of a corporate prize draw, so I did not have the opportunity to explain the system in advance or provide a small intro demonstration. My instruction sheet and information brochure are being changed to include some of the concerns raised.

Edited for clarity:

I need more bokashi. I am only 1 person using this system & started the composted at the end of March — so in less than 2 months I’ve used up the bag. I think used too much –but the reason why was because every time I opened the bucket to add more food scraps, I would find mold on the top of the food/enzyme pile AND all over the interior sides of the bucket.  So, I would try to scrape the sides & add more bokashi in order to cover the mold & aid digestion.

I’m concerned that this system really does not break down the organic materials into compost. It really is in a very early state of decomposition and not appropriate for putting in my window planters (I’m an apt dweller). It appears that it only gets to a state of partially digested/rotted food. Is this correct?

Thanks,

J

My reply:

Thanks for your comments. I’ll answer them as best as I can. Using a 1Kg bag of bokashi in a two month period is within a normal range but for a single person, you are correct: it should last longer. Bokashi is very forgiving. As long as it has something to eat/grow on, it will continue to do its work.

With regard to the mold, on Page 2 of the instruction sheet is says:

The Signs Of A Successful Fermentation
Smell: Well fermented food organics should have a smell similar to that of pickles or
cider vinegar.

Visual: Occasionally, particularly for longer fermentation periods a white cotton-like
fungi growth may appear on the surface. This shows that a good fermentation
process has occurred.

The Signs That All Is Not Well*
Smell: A strong rancid or rotten smell indicates a poor batch of compost.

Visual: The presence black or blue-green fungi indicates that contamination has occurred
and the process has not fermented but putrefied.

Was your mold white or black? Did your food waste smell fermented or putrid?

With regard to what is happening in the bucket, again, you are correct: the system does not break down the organic materials into "black gold" compost.

It states this on Page 2 of the instruction sheet:

The Composting Process
The composting process is one of fermentation, which is like pickling
onions in a jar. The organic food will not breakdown or decompose
while it is in the bucket. So if you have a bucket that is fermenting
with a pickling/vinegar type smell and looks the same when you put the
food in the bucket, this is okay composting is still happening.

On Page 4 it states that the finishing process is as follows:

How To Use Your Biosa Bokashi Compost or What to do when the bucket is full

In existing gardens
Dig a hole/trench approximately 20-25 cms deep, add the fermented food organics and mix with some soil, then cover with the remaining soil. The FM fermented compost is acidic when first dug in but neutralises after 7-10 days. Bacteria in the soil and compost will start to break down the food and after about 2-4 weeks all the food will have decomposed. Alternatively you can add it to an existing compost bin.

For people who live in apartments, there are different solutions possible and I offer the suggestion provided in this weblink:

http://www.livingsoil.co.uk/learning/planters.html

According to one of my clients, this has worked very well for him.

I hope this is helpful for you J. The concerns you raised will be made more clear in my information brochures and instructions.

Please contact me to get another bag of bokashi.

Regards,

Al

*I did not include this section in my original reply.

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Isabella uses social media a lot and was inspired by moneycoach to get on board the bokashi bandwagon.

Thanks.

Lisa works at Junxion Strategy which has a bokashi bucket in their company kitchen.

Bokashi is compressed as much as possible to allow fermentation to occur in an anaerobic environment.

Getting the bokashi out of the bucket in preparation for drying requires loosening the material. Today, after over a year on the job, the fork broke

After a short moment of reflection - there has got be an easier way to do this - another fork was pressed into service

I noticed that the tines are closer together - caused by an accident of some kind - and it works better than the old one. Eureka!!

From an email by Tina D

MOBY has invited Al … to do a Bokashi Composting workshop. I have been using the system for a year now and love it ( no fruit-flies in the summer). Please RSVP moby_lize@yahoo.ca if you would like to attend.

See below for more information.

Bokashi Composting Workshop

Check the craigslist link for info

http://vancouver.craigslist.ca/cls/594388059.html

Date: Sunday March 9th

Time: 11am
Location: MOBY Garden
Cost: $5 - can be used toward the kit which costs $45

Limited space - 12 people only. Please RSVP to moby_lize@yahoo.ca

For more information please see these websites:
http://www.greatday.ca
http://www.bokashiman.com

This is not an official guerrilla gardener meet-up so please to moby_lize@yahoo.ca

To be clear, we will not be making bokashi. I am showing the process, how it works and the results bokashi compost dug into Tina D’s MOBY garden plot in January. In all, we’re looking at about 30 - 45 minutes.

GreenerBusiness 16: Starting a Compost

One of my clients - Bentley Christie - is interviewed about composting by this online non-profit that “provides open graphic design and other services/projects.” Near the end, when Bentley talks about bokashi, they feature two of my photos. Here is one of them:

Credit for all Flickr Creative Commons photos is given at the end of the podcast.

Oanh a lawyer in England via Australia writes about her experiences exploring composting options and finds that bokashi is best solution:

Halfway between Ca Mau and Sai Gon: Compost-ing

So I started reading about Bokashi again. And this time, one year on, many more people have it and have used it, and can attest to it. Since entering the blogging world, I tend to trust bloggers’ reviews of products. I can gauge how similar I am to them, or their process of thinking, by reading happily around their archives and deciding whether or not what they say can apply to me. I tend to search reviews on the internet and specifically on blogs.

…

Initially, I avoided Bokashi Man because, although he’s a blog [sic], he was a seller of the Bokashi bran and plastic buckets. I thought he would be commercial. But eventually, I returned to his site and had a proper read. He is full of useful information, and is not just trying to sell his product. Indeed, he directed a person from New Zealand (we Aussies call them Kiwis, but I think perjoratively, so perhaps I should not) to another site from which they could purchase the product. He’s also a decent read….

Nice.

P.S. There’s a neat pic on Oanh’s blog.

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