Monday, June 9, 2008

Bokashi Composting

Bokashi (Japanese for "fermented organic matter") is a method of intensive composting.
It can use an aerobic or anaerobic inoculation to produce the compost.
Once a starter culture is made, it can be re-used, like yogurt culture.
Since the popular introduction of effective microorganisms (EM), Bokashi is commonly made with only molasses, water, EM, and wheat bran.
However, Bokashi can be made by inoculating any organic matter with a variety of hosts of beneficial bacteria/microbes.
This includes manures, spent mushroom compost, mushroom spores, worm-casting tea, forest soil tea, yeast, pickles, sake, miso, natto, wine and beer.
Molasses feeds the microbial cultures as they inoculate the organic matter.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi
Some more discussion on Bokashi: http://dirtbyamystewart.blogspot.com/2006/02/bokashi.html

Comment: I would like to learn how to make a Bokashi starter-set in a easy way, as in...Bokashi for dummies!

Illustration on youtube:


1 comment:

HG said...

Some second thoughts on the Bokashi-method:

Nowadays there are some companies who promote the plastic (!!!) bokashi-bucket including the starting materials (molasse, bran, certified bacteria).

I am not so happy about buying the plastic, maybe I'll buy the materials sometime.

On the other hand:
If I follow the permaculture-principle on just using the on-site materials, then I'll just have to continue experimenting & observing cold composting.
That will save me some money and plastic.