28 March, 2008

Ahhh Bokashi

I feel I ought to write this entry in the guise of the teacher "Ahhh grasshopper" as in Kung Fu from the 70s (a misspent youth), and I am sure my father would have. Yes I know Bokashi is Japanese not Chinese but it wouldn't have stopped Dave. However.

The bin has landed - two to be exact bought from the Guardian website and arriving with a very nice free hand towel made of bamboo and cotton. I was rather disappointed to find the instructions were in clear and lovely English but not that they are pretty easy to follow. So here it is.



Cooked food will go in there, together with dairy, meat, bones (!), bread but not, for some reason, teabags. Anyone know if coffee grounds can go in or egg shells? They weren't mentioned. All the fresh fruit and veg, teabags, egg shells and coffee grounds will go into the standard compost caddy until further notice. Once scattered with the bran, which reminds me of a brewery (hops) so not unpleasant really, it looks like this. I suspect I may be being over generous with the bran but we shall see.




Thanks to The Rubbish Diet for the inspiration finally to buy this thing (and for other inspiration re: rubbish) and to Karen at Wiggly Wrigglers (sorry I didn't buy it from you ... free towel and all that).

3 comments:

Her indoors said...

Hi Eliane - just wondering how you are getting on with your Bokashi. I'm now becoming more confident in my the amount of bran I use and I think I am getting through less these days.

A big hello to Brecon by the way... I originally come from a village near Merthyr Tydfil and have enjoyed many a visit to your neck of the woods.

Oanh said...

Hi Eliane -

I've come here by way of Al the Bokashi man.

I live in the south of England, so I suspect our climates are somewhat similar but lucky you! Brecon Beacons are lovely (visited last year).

I too started on bokashi earlier this year and have a couple of posts on my blog under the tag 'being green', if you're interested.

I've been putting in coffee grounds, tea bags and egg shells (along with a lot of fruit and vege scraps) with absolutely no hiccups.

I also put in fish bones, and they seemed fine. They are now in with my compost bin and so far, so good.

I don't think you can go astray by being over-generous with the bran.

And if you are worried about the bokashi mix, you can leave to ferment for longer than two weeks before adding it to the ground or the compost.

Good luck!

D. S. Foxx said...

Welcome to the bucket brigade!

I was curious about the tea bags, too, so I did some reading. Turns out most folks have no problem with them _so long as they're well squeezed or allowed to dry_, though now and then you do see the odd specific-number recommendation. (e.g. "no more than five per day". Who figured that out and what size bucket was s/he working with? For that matter, what sized tea bag? And would the type of tea matter? -G-)

IIRC, the great Al of bokashi fame set up bokashi buckets for a tea shoppe...

Happy bokashi-ing!

DSF
http://bokashislope.blogspot.com