Basic Composting II: Composting Kitchen Waste with Bokashi

We all produce kitchen wastes. Instead of sending them to landfills with our garbage, we can easily compost them for use in our garden. Composting kitchen wastes can be a little tricky to do especially with the wandering cats and pests that we might attract to the compost pile. To avoid having to deal with this, I settled on Bokashi Composting for our kitchen scraps.

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Our kitchen waste with bokashi bran

Using Bokashi bran, you will ferment your kitchen scraps before adding them to compost or before burying them in your garden. Your kitchen scraps includes vegetable trimmings, rice, meat scraps and so on – basically any unspoiled food scraps minus liquids and dairy. Egg shells can be added in, but you can also just crush them and sprinkle directly in the garden instead.

The fermented food scraps don’t attract flies, rodents and other pests. The pickled smell may be a little stronger than I expected but tolerable so you can place your bokashi bin in the kitchen for easy access.

What you’ll need

  • Bokashi bran. You can create your own bokashi bran or buy in bulk from Costales like I do. Costales Nature Farms is an organic farm in Majayjay, about an hour and a half drive from Lucena. I first heard about Bokashi from the free workshop they offered in last year. Last month, I got a 5 kl bag of bokashi bran for 55 pesos and it’s good for almost 2 months of our kitchen waste. You can also purchase the EM1 solution from Costales when making your own bokashi bran.
  • Airtight bucket or container. We created our own bucket but you can purchase one from Costales as well. It should be airtight when closed with a false-bottom and faucet to drain liquid. You don’t have to add a faucet, just place shredded cardboards or papers in the bottom of the bucket to absorb the liquid. We bought ours in palengke (wet market) and you need at least two buckets.
  • Kitchen waste. You can add vegetable scraps, stale bread, and rice to the bucket. You can add fish and meat products  as well, but you need to double your bokashi bran. Do not add any liquid and soups to your bucket.
  • A place to bury your fermented kitchen waste.
  • Bottomless bin (optional). You can place your bottomless bins around the garden.
  • Gardening trowel or shovel.

What to do

  1. If you’re using the bucket for the first time, sprinkle bokashi bran (about a small handful) before adding your kitchen waste.
  2. Add your kitchen waste and sprinkle bokashi bran on top to slightly cover the waste layer.
  3. Press down to remove excess air then seal.
  4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until your bucket is full.
  5. Seal your bucket airtight and let the kitchen waste ferment for 2 weeks. This is why you need 2 Bokashi buckets – you can use the other bucket while fermenting waste in the first one.
  6. Don’t forget to drain the excess liquid (bokashi tea) about every other day during fermentation. You can use the tea to clean your drainage or dilute it with water for your plants. Different sources says different ratios (tea:water; 1:40; 1:100) so be careful and test things first. We don’t use ours on plants.
  7. Transferring fermented waste to a bottomless bin in the garden

    Transferring our fermented kitchen waste to a bottomless bin in the garden

    After 2 weeks, place your fermented waste under about 5 inches of soil in the bottomless bin. We rotate burying our wastes between our 3 bottomless bins. This saves us from digging every time. Make sure the roots of your plants won’t touch the fermented waste. We used to follow the 2 week fermentation schedule for the first few months. Now we only transfer the fermented waste when the other bucket is about 3/4 full, so we don’t have to think about it. This usually happens after 3 or sometimes 4 weeks. It can also work in apartments with no garden – you just need to bury the fermented waste in a big container with soil.

  8. Clean bokashi bucket for next use.
  9. Harvest soil from the bin in a month or so. We usually sprinkle them on top soil or use them for sowing seeds.

Sometimes things go wrong too – people adding soups, people forgetting to drain the liquid, close the lid and so on. The fermented waste will turn black or will smell really bad. If this happens, simply add a few bokashi bran, bury them under the soil and try again. Do bury them though somewhere else in the garden and not near your crops. Be careful with dogs too – my dog dug the stuff up to eat (the correctly fermented waste) so better bury them where they can’t access it.

What I love about bokashi composting is that it’s very simple and easy to do.  I’ve wanted to be able to compost our kitchen waste and this is the only one that stuck with us for almost a year and a half now. And even when things happen, you can just start over again and still bury the (failed) waste in your garden.

This is part 2 of the Basic Composting Series. You can learn how to compost fallen leaves easily in the first part of the series.

Author: King Medina

is an entrepreneur from Lucena City. She's multipassionate and is currently interested in permaculture and bird watching. She enjoys frequent walks in nature, visual arts and life hacks.

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