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    Better Bokashi: ...better earth
    Better Bokashi: ...better earth
    Better Bokashi: ...better earth
    Ebook234 pages2 hours

    Better Bokashi: ...better earth

    By Todd Veri and Nichola Lytle

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    About this ebook

    Better Bokashi...better earth is a complete guide to Bokashi composting - an indoor method of food waste recycling that allows you to quickly turn any type of food waste into the most nutrient rich soil amendment possible.

    Perfect for both Bokashi novices and those that are already fermenting their food waste; Better Bokashi takes you step-by-step through the entire process including waste collection, fermentation, and disposal.

    You will learn about the history of Bokashi, Bokashi Basics, the truth about the Juice, all about the Starter and it's many uses, and many DIY methods. Also included is the Bokashi Home Guide, the Bokashi Food Waste Guide, and the Bokashi Quick Guide which can be printed for easy reference.

    But what makes Better Bokashi...better earth a must read for any Bokashi pioneers (or really anyone concerned about the environment) is that it introduces a new and improved method of Bokashi composting to the world. Simply dubbed the 'Better Bokashi Method' it takes out the mess that can be associated with Bokashi composting and makes it suitable for any home, classroom , or business.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBookBaby
    Release dateDec 24, 2013
    ISBN9781483516530
    Better Bokashi: ...better earth

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      Book preview

      Better Bokashi - Todd Veri

      Contents

      Forward 7

      1. Bo...what? 10

      Bokashi’s History

      Compost Comparisons

      Pothing’s Nerfect (Nothing’s Perfect)

      2. ABC’s of Bokashi 25

      The Name Game

      Bokashi Basics

      A Bit of the Science

      The Starter

      Meet the MyCrobz

      The Substrate

      Buy it or Make it?

      Using the Starter

      3. The Truth about the ‘Juice’ 52

      The Variable Juice

      The Good, the Bad, and the Yucky

      Collection, Storage, and Use

      There is a Better way

      4. Your Bokashi Buckets 68

      To Tap or Not to Tap?

      No Nesting Buckets

      Better Bokashi

      Buy it or DIY it?

      A look at Lids

      Bucket Logistics

      5. Bokashi Home Guide 82

      Starting a Bucket

      Bucket with Tap

      No Tap

      Second Time Around

      Remember the Mantra?

      Collect

      Do Not Add

      Add in Moderation

      Prep First

      2 - Dump

      3 - Squish

      4 - Sprinkle

      5 - Close

      Size & Moisture

      Quick Guide

      6. The Bokashi Waste Collection Guide 108

      Do Not Add

      Add in Moderation

      Preparing the Waste

      7. Fermented Waste Options 131

      Bury it

      Steps to Bury Waste:

      Soil Factory

      Steps to Make Soil:

      Compost Accelerant

      Steps to Activate a Sad Compost Pile:

      Steps to Build a Bokashi Accelerated Compost Pile:

      Bokashi Tea

      Steps to make Bokashi Tea

      Feed Supplement

      Share it or Get it Picked Up

      Winter Solutions

      Cleaning Up

      8. Help...I think something is wrong 151

      What do you smell?

      What do you see?

      Possible Causes

      Other Problems

      Trying to Fix a Bucket gone Bad

      Disposing of a Bucket you couldn’t Save

      9. What else can I Bokashi? 162

      Farm and Yard Wastes

      Traditional Bokashi

      Gather the bulk materials

      Mix together the Liquids

      Build it

      Maintaining the pile

      Using Traditional Bokashi compost

      Bokashi and the 55 Gallon Drum

      Food Service Waste

      Festival Bokashi

      Pet Waste

      Industrial Wastes

      10. More Great Uses for the Starter 179

      Deodorizing

      Feed Supplement

      In the Garden

      Mosquitoes

      Portable Toilets and Septics

      Restore Waterways with Bokashi Balls

      Oil Spills

      11. Grow your Own MyCrobz 192

      Making Bokashi Starter

      About the Ingredients:

      Substrate Proportions

      Substrate Instructions

      Other Substrates

      Drying the Starter

      How to Make Bokashi Balls

      12. Conclusion 202

      Forward

      My introduction to Bokashi came in 2008, while my daughter and I were living in London. There was a local initiative to encourage urban composting that enabled us to get a quality wormery with all the necessary supplies, including worms and delivery, for only £5! What a great deal – especially as I was frustrated having only one option available to deal with my food waste: send it to landfill. I was already familiar with vermiculture as I had been feeding worms my garbage on and off for about 10 years, so I knew we would have fun with them. (I did not envision one priceless moment when I came upon my 5-year-old daughter with a handful of straws and some squiggly friends playing ringleader to her own personal worm circus!)

      I also knew that worms had their shortcomings, which meant we were still going to be tossing some of our food waste in the garbage, but it was better than the alternative.

      It was unfortunate that the initiative was not promoting Bokashi composting as well; the company that supplied the worms (wigglywigglers.co.uk) had an entire page in their catalogue touting its virtues – and it immediately grabbed my attention. But to tell you the truth, at first it only grabbed the attention of the cynic in me: it sounded too good to be true. How could you have meat in a bucket in your kitchen for weeks and not have it smell, and how come I had never heard of it before?

      Intrigued, I started to research Bokashi in my spare time and the more I learned, the more fascinated I became. I was not able to start my first Bokashi bucket until I returned to Canada a year or so later but by that time I was eager to jump on the Bokashi bandwagon.

      Back in Canada I had more time to search the various sites that promoted Bokashi and it quickly became apparent that much of the information available was contradictory, everyone had an opinion on the ‘best way’ to Bokashi, and no one wanted to talk about the problems and smells that sometime occur. Wanting to find clarity and understanding that the only way Bokashi could become mainstream was if the process was made as simple and hassle-free as possible, I made it my mission to try any and all methods of Bokashi and to learn as much about the process as I could.

      Since then I have made just about every Bokashi mistake imaginable: I have dealt with horrible messes, terrible smells, and one time experienced the shame of having guests run screaming from my kitchen. But with the possible exception of breaking up my dinner party, that was the plan: I wanted to find out was does and doesn’t work when it comes to Bokashi. In the end, as often is the case, the answers ended up being quite simple.

      My goal was to write a book that made Bokashi approachable and easy to learn, so that you would not only start Bokashiing yourself but be motivated to show and tell others. Let’s change the world with Bokashi – one kitchen at a time.

      Better Bokashi...better earth.

      1. Bo...what?

      Bokashi (pronounced bo-KAW-she) is a Japanese term meaning ‘fermented organic matter’. It usually refers to a method of indoor composting that uses beneficial micro-organisms (MyCrobz) to quickly ferment any type of food waste. This includes fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, small bones, bread, dairy, soiled paper, cooked foods, and more.

      Indoor Bokashi composting is a relatively new take on the traditional type of outdoor composting (also called Bokashi) practiced in south-east Asia. Today’s Bokashi is a simple 2-stage process that (when done correctly) produces no gas, heat, or rotten smells. It does not attract unwanted visitors such as vermin, maggots, or even bears, making it suitable for almost any situation that produces food waste.

      Bokashi is great for moms, dads, teachers, kids, grandparents, office managers, chefs, gardeners, and the environment. It is one of the easiest ways to act locally (and think globally) with regard to reducing your carbon footprint. And it’s fun!

      Bokashi is simply the best composting method for our time.

      Benefits of Bokashi

      Your reason for coming to love Bokashi will depend on your situation: a grandmother in a condo, a small cafe owner, or a family on a farm will all have different realities. The point is, if you are at all environmentally aware and consider all the composting options, you will come to love Bokashi (perhaps just out of necessity) because it is easy to learn, simple to do, and is hands down the best way to recycle food waste. Here are some of the benefits:

      Bokashi composting preserves all the nutrients in your food waste and adds MyCrobz and numerous beneficial compounds to the soil

      You can convert food waste to soil in as little as 30 days

      If you fully utilize your fermented waste you will never need to buy fertilizer for your garden again

      You won’t have rotten smells or ugly messes to clean up

      Fermented waste does not attract vermin, house flies, skunks, or bears

      Bokashi composting does not create greenhouse gases or heat during either stage of the process—this is unique in the world of compost!

      Bokashi is suitable to any size household, school, office, business, or event

      Bokashi reduces the volume and smell of the garbage you produce

      Great for do-it-yourselfers, as you can use recycled items to make your Bokashi Bucket and you can make your own Bokashi Starter

      Bokashi is a great teaching aid for science class

      It’s eye opening: you get to see the actual amount of food waste you produce (eye-opening)

      Recycling food waste helps the environment--and that makes you feel good!

      It’s simply the easiest and most environmentally friendly way to recycle food waste

      Bokashi’s History

      The concept of Bokashi—culturing micro-organisms to ferment waste into fertilizer—likely has its roots somewhere in south-east Asia. No one seems to know for sure.

      The first modern promotion of Bokashi composting came with the Nature Farming movement of Japan and Korea in the 1930’s. Nature Farming is similar to the Biodynamic movement that took place in Europe around the same time. Both were early examples of sustainable organic farming systems.

      The Bokashi practiced by these nature farmers was Traditional Bokashi, a method of outdoor composting that used easily cultured IMs or Indigenous Microorganisms (naturally occurring lactic acid bacteria and yeast) to quickly turn animal and agricultural wastes into an organic fertilizer. Heat and smells were created in this process, but the temperature was maintained at a lower rate than conventional composting and thus more nutrients were preserved, along with enzymes, amino acids, and many of the microbes.

      Traditional Bokashi differed from today’s Bokashi in two critical ways: it used IMs instead of EM and it was not an anaerobic (air-tight) process. EM (Effective Micro-organisms) are the combination of beneficial micro-organisms that were ‘accidentally discovered’ in the 1980’s by a soil scientist in Japan.

      Dr. Higa had been working with combination of microbes to more effectively convert organic matter into plant soluble nutrients. One day he noticed that plants in an area in which he had dumped a failed experiment were thriving and out-performing their neighbours; he revisited the failed experiment! Dr Higa knew he was onto something and shifted all his research to these new EM, eventually setting up EMRO (Effective Micro-organism Research Organization) to further the study.

      This original EM had almost a dozen different types of microbes in the mix, but over time (and with much research) the list was pared back to the 3 current MyCrobz that make up EM: lactic acid bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria, and yeast.

      The only difference between today’s EMs and traditional IMs is the photosynthetic bacteria. This may not seem like a big difference, but it is. Photosynthetic bacteria are the driving force behind the symbiotic relationship of the MyCrobz in EMs and Bokashi. Unfortunately, even though photosynthetic bacteria are all around us, they are extremely difficult to culture outside a lab. Therefore, it is possible to naturally harvest and culture your own IMs—but not your own EMs—and you can’t Bokashi with just IMs.

      Another piece of the puzzle that came out of Dr. Higa’s research was that EMs act differently in environments depending whether they are aerobic (with air) or anaerobic (without air). In aerobic conditions such as an outdoor compost pile, the MyCrobz in EM use available oxygen to convert some of the nutrients into gas and heat. But in anaerobic conditions, such as your Bokashi Bucket, the MyCrobz ferment the waste without the creation of gas or heat.

      How Bokashi got from a practice of turning large piles of manure and waste into fertilizer to an indoor practice of fermenting food waste in buckets is also a bit of a mystery. One thing is for sure though: Bokashi’s growing popularity would be impossible without a

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