Compost the Most! Bokashi Belches.

I love to compost, I love everything about it.

• It gives me free, powerful soil amendments.
• It's good exercise to toss my compost pile, and makes a good excuse to be outside.
• It makes me feel like I'm making something out of garbage, and "saving the world" a little bit at a time.

I've been composting for years. I take the "green stuff" (nitrogen) from my garden,  like grass, weed and brush clippings, and food scraps (except for meat, dairy or citrus) toss it with "brown stuff" (carbon) like leaves, paper, sawdust, give it some water and stand back.  A few weeks later, toss it with a pitchfork, and if you do that a few times you'll have the most beautiful soil additive you could buy in just a few months. 

It's like magic.  

We tried worm composting for a while. It was kind a fun. Take a plastic box about the size of a small suitcase, put in a couple dozen worms, and feed them stuff like apple cores and melon rinds.  They eat it up pretty well, poop it out and make "Worm Casings," which you pay big money for in the store. 

But it's kinda like having an ant farm. Fun for a while, but it gets boring, and takes up a couple square feet in my already messy garage. 

Erin Hoffer burying Bokashi burp

Then my wife heard about Bokashi, Japanese fermentation of kitchen waste. The newest, most eco-friendly form of waste disposal! And supposedly it took not only green gunk, but meat, bones, dairy and citrus! 

You can buy a bokashi maker, or make yourself one on the cheap. Take a couple five gallon plastic jugs. Drill several holes in the bottom of one, and nestle it into the other. Layer the garbage with a bran "starter" and seal it up. Seal it tight. Real tight. Cause this stuff is ba-a-a-a-d news. 

After a few weeks, it's time to collect your "prize." Liquid will drain out of slop, and into the lower bucket. Dispose of the liquid...fast. In fact, you might wear a self-contained breathing apparatus. It smells like a dozen out-houses that haven't been treated properly in years. (and I don't mean Porta-Potties, where the attendents take away the refuse when the tank fills up.) This is sewage like you can't imagine. I have a strong stomach, and I almost lost it on this stuff. It was the Devil's brew.

The semi-solid material in the top bucket is a whole 'nother treat. It's the chicken bones, steak, watermelon rinds and orange peels I put in there a few weeks ago, but now it's all gray and limp and mushy. If you are on a diet, and think you're hungry, empty the bokashi bucket before you eat.  I guarantee you'll lose weight.

Good old compost has an earthy, almost sweet aroma like you smell in the woods or with good garden soil. Bokashi burp is the diometric opposite. 

But the Bokashi Boomers said I was about to reap the benefits. Just bury it deep in standard compost pile, and in a few more weeks, the compost will be even better. (they said.)

So I followed directions, and a few weeks later I start digging out the pile. At first, I was pleasantly surprised, there was no trace of the smell or the contents! Unfortunately I did spot a completely intact chicken leg bone, that just about looked like it just left the plate. I didn't have the stomach to hunt for the rib-eye bones I put in there. 

In the interest of empirical research, I hunted out the experts in the field.

I met with "The Babes of Bokashi." Erin Hoffer,  (who doubles as Plano's Environmental education coordinator), Jan Eppard and Brenda Steib.

Erin tells me I didn't put nearly enough starter in the mix, and that my bucket had gone to "putrification" instead of decomposition. While I visited, she took a bucket of completed bokashi, and buried it deep in the garden. 

Erin said the effects of bokashi in the beds at the front of the Plano Community Garden have been nearly miraculous. (and I'm here to tell you, this is a beautiful garden!)

I stuck my nose in the bucket, and it didn't stink like mine. It was more of a sour/vinegary odor. Not pleasant, but I'll grant you, not as bad as what I concocted.

"Give bokashi another try?" asked Erin sweetly.

I think not. It's just not worth it. Food scraps are about 14 percent of your house's solid waste. Of course, much of that is stuff that's easily composted or put in a worm bin. Corn husts, melon rinds, apple rinds and stuff you can compost or feed worms makes up more than half of the 14 percent. When you get down to it, that's a pretty small share.