Kitchen Garden Forum

For those of you who've tried these out, would you care to share your experiences? We've had our two about 3 weeks now and things are broadly ok.

If you have one, can you let me know:

1) How long did it take for each of yours to become full? The notes with mine suggested around 2 weeks (though this must vary between households)

2) Do you put all compostable waste into yours, or do you reserve some stuff to go straight into an existing compost bin (like you previously may have done)?

3) Have you emptied yours out yet? If so, what had happened to the contents by that time?

4) Did you get much in the way of liquid produced?

5) Any idea how quickly you're getting through your "bran mixture"? Mine seems to be lasting, but at some stage I want to get the next bagful ordered, as the delivery of the initial unit took several weeks from Recycle Now.


Thanks in advance Feel free to add any further comments.


Colin

Hi Colin

1) It takes me around 2 weeks to fill a bin, which is great as it takes two weeks to ferment before emptying. With two bins the rotation works well.

2) No, I put mostly put stuff in it that I can't put in the wormery, ie catfood, meat scraps, citrus peel, bread etc. There was around 20% "green" waste.

3) Yes, I've emptied several out into a big compost bin at the allotment. It hadn't changed much in shape, just gone very mouldy with white stuff (normal apparently), but it didn't smell and seems to be rotting down nicely.

4) About 2 pints of liquid from each bin. One lot smelt strongly of orange as I'd put in a lot of orange peel.

5) The bran does seem to be lasting very well but I'm down to my last third so will be ordering again soon.

Hi there Colin and Chantal. Chantal, as a long time bokashi user, I wonder if you have had the same problem as me. The lid on mine is so tight that it is almost impossible to close. Mary has stopped fighting with it, and puts a rock on top! As she is the main user, I wondered if you have had the same problem?

No, the lids on mine are fine but you have to get them bang on target to get all four corners pushed down. If you can't get the fourth corner down, take the lid off and start again; that's what I do and it works.

I'm guessing the lids have to be so tight as the bokashi works anaerobically.

Thanks Chantal. I have tried everything. There must be a knack to it!

I'm now a little further down this path and have put the first batch on my compost heap. The second tub is "maturing" and I've started the third. Results have been:

1) Initially my bins were filling up in 8-10 days.

2) I now put less straight vegetable waste in, to combat this. If we end up throwing out half a wilting cauliflower, I put this straight into the normal compost heap.

3) After the 2+2 weeks, the contents seem softer, covered in white filaments & smell quite noticeably of pickle. I've yet to see if they decompose any faster in the main compost bin

4) We didn't get huge quantities of liquid initially, though this seems to grow over time. Now that all leftover cooked food is going in, I expect to get more than when it was just veg peelings etc. I'm not sure how useful it is, as for garden use, it seems to need massive dilution.

5) The bran seems to be lasting better than I thought. There also seem to be loads of sites selling it, including places that sell kits to "grow your own".


How about the rest of you?

Colin

I'm trundling along well with the bokashi bins - it's what to do with the produce that is bothering me. I wanted bokashi to work in tandum with my worms and possibly speed them up but the worms don't seem to go there. Perhaps it is too compact (so mixed with cardboard) or too acidic? One tray is now very smelly indeed!

My two bins have been going ok, but I ran out of bran then hit a shortage from the suppliers.

Two places I tried said their normal supplier had had to ditch several batches (blamed wet weather for problem).

In the end Green Gardener got me some.

Whilst looking, I found some sites that sell the source EM liquid, plus bran & malt, so you can "roll your own". However I decided that this was probably one home-brew excercise too far for me.


Colin