Bokashi Kitchen Composting
Widely used throughout New Zealand ZingBokashi Compost Zing processes household organic matter into highly productive garden compost in just 4 weeks! With the ZingBokashi composting system, the food waste does not rot. Bokashi is easy to make. All you need is a Bokashi compost bucket and some ZingBokashi. Bokashi is made with EM and is the perfect tool to produce an endless supply of organic fertiliser/compost from your kitchen waste. The materials in the bucket do not need to be heated or turned. The microbes in the Bokashi become active from the moisture in the food waste and begin to digest the sugars left in the foods right at room temperature. This fermentation process does not produce any odour. This is because the dominant microbes in this case are from EM. The fermentation does, however, need to be done in a completely airtight container. This is where the buckets come in to play.
The fermented food waste is then buried in the soil, fed to worms, or added to a compost pile. Since the fermented food waste still needs to break down or be digested by worms and other microbes, it cannot be used as mulch. Worms eat bacteria so it is an excellent food source for them and worm castings are beneficial for plants. To prevent rotting, the food waste will need to be covered with six or more inches of soil.
The advantages to using the ZingBokashi composting system include:
- Decreased composting time – up to 50% quicker than traditional composting
- Less odour as the food decays, due to the Bokashi fermenting, rather than decomposing, process
- Increased growing power resulting in healthier and more productive plants
- Easy to use, requiring no mixing and produces a very natural pour-on liquid fertiliser as well as physical compost
- No sad faces (which can be a problem when the worms die!)
- No unsightly, messy compost heap or worm farm boxes. Bokashi buckets are so compact (and because they don’t smell) you can easily keep them inside.