The Bokashi Blog — Day One.

Today The Compost Collective had their monthly catch up with the compost workshop tutors and support crew. (I’m part of the support crew. The only one who has never tried composting… They haven’t run me out of the village yet.)

Sarah Jane was delighted to present to me my very own Bokashi bucket. We were pushed for time so she quickly showed me how to start… The things I remember her saying were;

• It’s very important to keep the seal of the lid tight. You push firmly in the center and it clicks and seals. (She made me show her I could do it right.) We don’t want a lot of air in there apparently. Bad stuff happens if there’s too much air exposure time.

SJ quickly fires through the start up advice.

• Keep a sealed food scraps container on the kitchen bench. Then you can transfer all that food waste into the Bokashi bin at the end of the day. (Less air exposure time for the bin.)
• Don’t store the Bokashi bin in the sun. I’m going to keep mine in my pantry, apparently that’s good.
• Mash the food waste in the Bokashi bin with an old potato masher. Or bottle, or brick even. Just mash all the air out of the food as much as possible. (Or bad stuff will…)

The Zing goes in first.

• Sprinkle the Zing in before anything else. Don’t put bread in first because it becomes a bit doughy and can block up the holes at the bottom. I have a lot of mandarine skins so apparently this is a great “base” layer. Good.
• It’s important to check the holes in the bottom of the top bucket every now and then and wipe the base to make sure the liquid can seep through easily.
• Empty out the liquid in the bottom bucket regularly, don’t let it rise up to touch the top bucket. Apparently this liquid is magic for your garden. I don’t have a garden but I hear it’s good for cleaning out drains. So yep, magic stuff. [*Makes a note to find out what other uses the Bokashi liquid might have. The mind wanders…]

SJ looks confident at least.

SJ told me a bunch of other helpful things but I needed to race off to collect my kids from school. So I will be reading the “getting started” Bokashi tips on the website tonight just to cover all bases.

Have you got any tips or advice for my DAY ONE? Also, what do you use your Bokashi liquid for?

My first Bokashi entry.

-Lauren.