submariner wrote:I bought two for £25, however the lids are so tight
They certainly can seem tight. I found with mine that I could get one or two sides to seal easily. I then ran my finger down the edges towards the remaining corners and could complete the seal like that.
Once done a few times, the plastic becomes more pliable.
Chantal wrote:I've dumped a few bucketfuls into one of my allotment bins and it certainly doesn't smell. There's no rat activity but until I empty it out next year I won't really know. It's looking good though.
I'm just about to empty my first bucket onto the compost heap and wondered how your compost was looking this year?
What does everyone do with the juice? I've been diluting mine a bit and chucking it on the compost heap (black bin/dalek kind). Should I?
Thanks - still feeling my way with all this (I've got a wormery about 2 months old too).
I'm a year into my bokashi now and definately pleased with it, i trenched most of mine over the winter and now that i'm planting in the soil over i find very little trace of it, the odd eggshell or apple core, none of the food waste, shall see how my crops fare. I did also empty a couple of binfuls into the compost, i was turning it the other dAy, its nearly done, and again very little evidence of bokashi material, certainly no smell.
I realise you may be talking about the plot after adding Bokashi material, but does either the contents of your Bokashi bin or the drained-off liquid smell?
The liquid from mine has a really pungent smell. Our bin has around 100% vegetable matter going into it, so I'm at abit of a loss to understand this.
the contents of the bin has a sweet smell, a bit like pickled cabbage if i was to liken it to anything, not unpleasant, I quite like it! After it is dug into the plot or compost bin I dont notice it again.
I fill ours with mainy food scrapings from plates, so cereal, bread crusts, quite a lot of rice goes in, we are vegetarian so only the occasional meat if the cats leave anything, if you are putting veg in, surely some of that could go in your regular compost bin?, perhaps you need a bit more dry matter.
I understand that as long as you dont have green mould ( I think some white is ok) then its doing its job, mine do tend to take a bit longer than the two weeks to fill as well, as much of our waste is composted normally anyway, peelings etc, so perhaps that helps it sits longer before it is emptied.
I collected about 2 pints of brown sweet-smelling fluid during the 4 weeks that my full bin was fermenting. The houseplants don't seem to have suffered any from its use over the susequent 2 months, although the instructions say [I've only recently noticeed] that you should use the fluid about 2 or 3 days after collecting it. So on the whole I think the thing is doing its job, but I'll only really be able to tell when i decide whether it has accelerated my compost bin or not.
