Meet Bokashi composting: The Japanese method making composting easy and anaerobically breezy!
Bokashi is a Japanese word meaning “fermented organic matter.” The definition of composting is: “a process by which organic materials are deliberately decomposed in a controlled fashion to produce a material that can be used to return nutrients to the soil.”
What’s different about Bokashi is that the fermentation process is anaerobic, which means that oxygen is effectively excluded during the process. Developed in the early 1980s by Dr. Teuro Higa, the method involves layering kitchen scraps (vegetables and fruits, as well as meat and dairy scraps) with a Bokashi inoculant in a special bucket. The microorganisms use enzymes to break down the waste.
Bokashi Cycle’s process is the 100% natural way to reduce, reuse, and recycle organic waste. Fermenting helps reduce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane, and bad smells like hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, which are associated with composting. It is also much faster and more effective at breaking down waste than traditional composting.
Fermenting your waste involves a similar process to making wine. Oxygen is the enemy that causes that rotting, decomposing smell. In the B.C system, the lack of oxygen and the relatively low acidity prevent the organisms that produce gas and smells from forming, and kills any that were present to begin with. They are then consumed by the anaerobic organisms that thrive when oxygen is absent.
Mixing Bokashi Cycle’s bran culture creates a recycling process that reduces the amount of waste in landfills. The processed waste ends up in your garden, where plants will get good use out of the nutrients that are produced while waste is destroyed.
A healthy balance of microbes goes into the soil with the fermented waste, re-establishing the necessary high microbial counts always present in healthy soil, which also improves uptake of nutrients and antioxidants, resulting in vigorous and healthy plant growth. The liquid byproduct makes excellent fertilizer tea for feeding plants directly, reducing our dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. It also conserves water, and reduces groundwater nutrient leaching.
Bokashi living is the brand bringing this method around the world, to showcase the Japanese way of composting. Should it be yours too?
