Bokashi experiences - what's yours?

The_Ubiquitous_Mrs_Smith

So, all is going well. About half filled it. The vinegar smell has calmed down a lot and there's a nice white powdery mould growing all over it. Getting lots of liquid from it which my orchids (including one I thought was dead!) and lavender in particular love. I now pour the left over liquid in the outside drain which is a bit of a waste. I did consider offering it to my gardening neighbour but didn't like the idea of a conversation which started with "Would you like some really smelly liquid which is made up of our left over fermenting food matter? It's good for your plants honest!"

The only problem we are having is fruit flies. We've kept the lid on tightly at all times but we've been plagued by the things. The only advice I cna find is to add more bokashi but I think we're using too much already (the two month supply has lasted about a month). We never use to get fruit flies when I kept a tub of veg/fruit to go into the compost so why are we getting them when we're using a sealed system which we sometimes don't open for a few days at a time? Any suggestions please? The bokashi has been relegated to the garden until we can sort them out!

Ziggymole

Hi Mrs Smith,

I'm pretty sure that the fruit flies would have laid their eggs on the skin of the fruit and veg before you peeled and used it, therefore once in the bokashi bin they hatch and have nowhere to go until you open the lid. I'm finding the same is happening to me so my bin also lives outside. I'm "feeding" my first bin of bokashi to my wormery at the mo, the worms love it.

About the amount of bran you're using. My buckets came with three bags of bran weighing 1kg each. It took us about three weeks to fill the first bucket and I've used less than 1/4 of the first bag (I also use the scoop to measure). I wonder if you're using too much? My experience with a family of four is that we don't always produce enough waste a day to justify calling it a layer and adding bran. I wait until there is about 1cm layer and then add. This has worked well and the resulting bin hasn't smelt bad at all.

I suppose it's going to need a bit of trial and error until you find the right combination of waste/bran for your family's leftovers.

All the best
Ziggym

The_Ubiquitous_Mrs_Smith

Hi Ziggy.

Thanks for the reply.

The fruit flies are actually from the bokashi liquid I pour on my houseplants. Not really sure what we can do about them apart from put the plants out after we've watered them and keep a vinegar trap. Not a long term solution though so still working on that. Am loath to stop using the liquid on my plants because they love it.

Like you, most of our leftovers go into a tub and when that is full or every couple of days we empty that into the bokashi to keep the amount of bran we're using down. Obviously things like fish etc go straight in. I think we are using too much (a two month supply ended up lasting about five/six weeks at most) but I think I'd rather use too much and have the results we seem to be having than not enough and have the unpleasant results others have said they've had.

Almost two months after starting we have almost finished our first bin. I suspect we have about another two/three weeks in there depending on how much it will squish. Now bearing in mind there is fish and meat bones and other smellies in there at most we get a pickled onions smell, some days it's stronger than others but now I've got used to it it isn't offensive in the least. Bizarrely the liquid smelt of strawberries today after I put strawberry tops in there yesterday!

Am really not looking forward to emptying two months plus of old food though! Especially as the fish and some meat bones were the first things we put in there. I suspect that job will fall to me! Blgggh.

Am still worried about rats when we empty it and I'm still feeling guilty and like I'm starving the worms in my composter!

penguine

I just got a pair of bokashi bins yesterday (after reading this thread all the way through!) so thought I'd bump this. I found a good leaflet here on how to use them. Contrary to what others have done on here, it says no meat bones.

We live in a flat and my allotment is a 15-minute walk away, so it's not really convenient to make frequent trips with food scraps for the compost bin. We don't have a place for a worm bin so I thought this system would work best for us.

Is anyone else still composting with bokashi bins?

a11waysindebt

I still put meat/meat bones in mine. I mix mine in with the compost bin when its ready and so far have had 3 good turn outs.

The_Ubiquitous_Mrs_Smith

Hi Penguine!

You'll find that advice varies greatly for what you can and can't put in. I've seen some that say definately no meat or bones, others that say it's fine. I've seen advice that says to add liquids and others that say never to do that. There even seems to be a debate about whether you can put tea bags in the things. Personally we've gone for the throw everything in (apart from liquids) and hope for the best approach! After all, that was why we bought it. We very rarely eat meat so it will just be the odd bone.

We burried our first bucket on Sunday. That had three month old raw fish and chicken bones in it. It smelt a sweet and vinegary and everything was still recognisable although it had a beige tinge. The smell wasn't something you'd wear as a perfume but it wasn't particularly offensive.

I'll admit I'm still a little nervous re rats so thought burrying it put my mind at ease a bit although I doubt anything would recognise the vinegar smell as food anyway. I'm also a bit disappointed that I won't get to see how fast it decomposes.

The bin wasn't so pleasant to wash though and still has a slight smell to it.

The stuff is very close to some flowers and it might be my imagination but they seem to have perked up. My orchids are now getting their forth buds since I started adding bokashi liquid to them. Not bad seeing as I could never get them to flower before!

We've been very pleased so far. The tap for the second bin has fallen off mid use though. That's now got a cork in it. We've also decided to seperate compostable scraps and bokashi scraps as we were using too much bokashi bran to cover mainly veg peelings which can just go in the compost.

I guess it depends on what food waste you have but if you have a lot of compostable stuff you can get compost caddies which apprently don't smell and will store waste for a couple of weeks. Will save on bran.

One unforeseen advantage of it all was that over the warm weather our bin men got confused over what their job was and our bins weren't emptied for weeks. We don't have a huge deal of waste anyway but because there was no food waste in the bin at all we had no problems with smells, flies, overfilling etc which some of our neighbours did.

Oh, long post! Sorry!

Anyway, Penguine, good luck with it and let us know how you get on. It seems like it's a bit of trial and error and commitment.

a11waysindebt

The_Ubiquitous_Mrs_Smith wrote: »

I doubt anything would recognise the vinegar smell as food anyway.

I once opened the bucket and put it on the kitchen floor only to fight with my dog to get it back. He had about 3 big mouth fulls before I pulled it off him.

topicalcat

dannahaz wrote: »

Hi All

I've just taken delivery of a pair of Bokashi kitchen composters. The instructions of what can and can't go in are not great, and I wondered what your experiences were.

For example, it says you can't put tea bags in??? But on a website, someone was saying they put teabags in. What about coffee grouts? Leftover cat food?

I normally compost hair (mine and the cats). Can I Bokashi that?

The literature says "spent flowers". What about the fresh green stalks that I have just cut off new flowers?

Bread?

Any help and advice gratefully received.

Hi, I have been using a pair of Bokashi Bins for 2 years now (much to my wifes disgust as she can not stand the smell) Yes you can compost pet hair, and yes you can put in cooked or uncooked meat waste so that included any left over cat (or dog) food. you can also bokashi small amounts of cat poo as long as you seperate out the litter. I put tea bags, tortoise poo, surplus gravy, scrappings from plates, you name it! Yes you can put spent flowers and green stalks in. Spent flowers and stalks can go straight onto the compost heap but if it suits you then they can go in the Bokashi bin. Just remember you are using bran to pickle something which does not need the bokashi process. I do because it suits me. As regards coffee grounds, yes they can go in the bokashi bin but better to save then and use them as a slug deterrant

Also I use less bran than they tell you. Its the ongoing cost of bran that adds up. You can make your own bokashi bran but it does not store as well. The ingrediants to make your own bran are out there on the web.

As long as the bin smells of vinegar/pickled you are using enough bran. After 2/3 weeks I add the contents to the compost bin. No self respecting rat is going to enjoy that stuff. Incidentally you can add the contents from a mature bokashi bin to a wormery, a bit like feeding your worms on bio yoghurt! The beneficial bacteria which develop in the bin are good for your compost heap, soil, wormery and even your drains. Yes the juice makes a good drain cleaner though I prefer to water it down & use as plant food.

penguine

The_Ubiquitous_Mrs_Smith wrote: »

I guess it depends on what food waste you have but if you have a lot of compostable stuff you can get compost caddies which apprently don't smell and will store waste for a couple of weeks. Will save on bran.

One unforeseen advantage of it all was that over the warm weather our bin men got confused over what their job was and our bins weren't emptied for weeks. We don't have a huge deal of waste anyway but because there was no food waste in the bin at all we had no problems with smells, flies, overfilling etc which some of our neighbours did.

I tried just using compost caddies for awhile but we got fruit flies which are a real nuisance in a tiny kitchen. I'm looking forward to throwing out much less in our bin ... and not having black bin liners tear and spill rotting fruit and veg on the floor!

penguine

I've been using the first bokashi bin for 2 weeks now and I'm about to leave it to ferment while I start on the second one. It seems to be going OK so far ... only hiccup is the tap, which has fallen off. As you have to fit part of it on the inside and I can't get to that part with all the food scraps jammed into the bin I have had to tape over the hole. Luckily I was not getting any liquid out of the bin so it could have been worse. I wish I had a cork ... we don't drink much wine but I might have to insist on getting a bottle for our wedding anniversary on Friday just so I have a cork to use for the bokashi bin!

After the first 5 days the bin was looking so full I thought I wasn't going to be able to use it for the full 2 weeks. We don't throw out much uneaten food but we do eat lots of fruit and veg so there are lots of trimmings ... and my 6 year old still won't eat her crusts which creates a surprising amount of wasted bread! But I got the special cheap plastic mashing tool with my bins and it has compressed things very nicely so I was able to keep adding to it even after it looked pretty full.

I'm probably erring on the side of using too much of the bokashi bran, but once I've been doing this for awhile I'll start experimenting to see how little I can get away with.

There's a slight aroma from the corner of the kitchen where I keep the bin, but it smells more like the bran than rotting fruit/veg and it's not as bad as our regular kitchen bin used to get after a few days.