Bokashi Part 2

Hmmmm, doccat, do you have any interesting stories about the intimate life of slime moulds?

LOL - well thats one way of looking at it I guess :-) Clever idea of using the plastic wrap CCgardener. I was using a plate but obviously a round plate in a square bucket was never going to be totally airtight.

I will add the green bokashi to the compost and start again. I'm pretty sure there just wasn't enough EM1 in the mix as well as too much water. I think this time I will only make enough for a 5-gallon bucket though. That way if it fouls I won't have wasted so many materials.

doccat - do you think heavily diluted "juice" could be used on seedlings?

On Sunday I added the green Bokashi to the compost bin (10G plastic garbage can with holes drilled all over it and the bottom cut off). Initially I thought it was too much brown so chucked on a bit more chicken poop ('cos THAT supply is not running out any time soon!!!), bit of water mixed it up. Tonight I went out there to add yet more chicken poop from my nightly pick-up ritual and it was steaming!! I'm very excited because this is the first time ever that I've had steaming compost. When I took the lid off the compost bin everything was covered in white mould like in garden_mermaid's picture. All I can say is WOW, I can't wait to use it on the garden :-)

Side note: it did smell a bit like I was making blue cheese. Interesting.

I fully intend on using diluted "juice" on my seedlings. Don't see why it would hurt. And unfortunately, gardenmermaid, the only slime mould types I knew were not related to my Bokashi experiments. Just old co workers..........ugh! LOL DH got another 4 cups off the first bucket and it's went to the compost bin on Sunday. We've been getting additional veggie peelings and coffee grounds from a local mom and pop operation, so we don't lack for "materials" to build the buckets.

Hey! Bokashi composting WORKS! Faster than I ever thought! I dumped two buckets of Bokashi-scraps into my compost bin Feb. 23 and March 13th. As the 5-gall. buckets filled up, I'd set them in the garage to "age" for two weeks and then dump them into my BioStack bin, and today I dug into my compost bin and found fat worms and dark looking compost! It's got a ways to go to be truly finished, but it's not pickled veggies, meat, dairy, etc., anymore! Yessssss!

LOL Congrats on your success CCGardener.

I found this interesting website that has a lot of information about EM. I found it answered it a lot of questions for me.

http://www.eminfo.info/index.html

There is a lot of interesting information on that site. Vinny also has a several yahoo groups for discussing the use of EM in many applications. Just be forewarned that one needs to be very thick skinned if you join one of his groups, as well as needing to always be grammatically correct in your postings. Vinny is known for his arrogance and rudeness, so if you are prepared for that and can deal with it, you may want to join one of the following EM related yahoogroups:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/EM-Farm-Ind/
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/EM-health/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EM-Home/

I had joined that group, gardenmermaid and was doing pretty good until some of the conversation got way more sleeze and explicit in ways I find not acceptable to be discussing in that kind of a forum. NOT the information I was looking for. Geez, like a bunch of middle school boys in the bathroom. I dropped out rather quickly. Vinny needs his mouth washed out with soap! LOL

I agree doccat. That's why I posted the warning. I get the posts in digest form and can quickly pull out what is useful and delete the rest. There is some useful information in the historical messages if you are willing to skip through the garbage in between.
I'm happy to see EM discussed on DG where the atmosphere is pleasant.
I've bookmarked some of the pertinent posts from the yahoo group and will add the useful info in a sanitized form.

Thanks Garden mermaid. I very much appreciate that as I don't have time or the stomach to sift through the "garbage".:) I barely have time to check through a few threads on DG.

After a month of doing Bokashi composting, I'm ready to bury the bucket, and I finally got some juice from the spigot. Whee! This has been a painless attempt to be a little 'greener'. I look forward to improving my soil inch by inch, or foot by foot with both types of compost.

Mary

Congratulations Mary. Bokashi kind of "grows" on you, doesn't it? :P

Mary, you go gurl!!! I am a convert!!

Those earthworms do plump out and multiply on the stuff! Natural steroids for worms?

You got to wonder, garden mermaid--it must be something REALLY healthful for those worms.

Started my first batch of extended EM1 this morning.

Got two big bags of sawdust to start my second batch of bokashi tomorrow.

I love this stuff.

katiebear

g_m - did you ever start bokashi with coffee grounds. I was thinking about it as I emptied my grounds into the bokashi bucket today. I bet the smell would be amazing :-)

I use coffee grounds in mine all the time, wgnkiwi. DH says it smells better, who knew? I'm very sensitive to odors, I have to avoid the perfume counters in the major dept stores, but I like the smell of the bokashi. To me it smells earthy and slightly fruity.

I have 50 lbs of wheat bran coming in Friday, hopefully. I found an organic heath food store that actually knew what I was talking about......LOL I'd been hitting the duh, I never heard of that, for a little to long, I guess. She wasn't able to find rice bran, but got a good deal on the wheat bran, so I can make some extended, hopefully this weekend!!

doccat, have you tried feed stores? You might get a better price on the wheat or rice bran if you buy it from a feed store.

wgnkiwi, the aroma of pickled coffee grounds in the bokashi bucket has some interesting effects........it's harder to resist drinking coffee when one gets so involved with the grounds. LOL!

Pay attention to the moisture content of the grounds as you mix in the EM and molasses.
Sometimes the bag of grounds are moister than others. You won't need to add much water compared to making the Bokashi "bran" with actual dry wheat or rice bran.

GM, I went to both feed stores first, lol....... not the brightest bulbs on the tree there. sigh I just LOVE urbana!! NOT!!

I found malasses at Big Lots cheaper than I could find at any supermarket. Way cheaper. $1.80 for 16 oz., about half the price of other stores. Probably would be cheaper at a feed store if you can find one that carries it.

katiebear

[quote}it's harder to resist drinking coffee when one gets so involved with the grounds. LOL![/quote]

I know, I know.... the smell of coffee is almost irresistible.

doccat, I had to get rice bran ordered in as a 'special' from the place where I get chicken feed from. Not much call for it these days they said.

I can understand that one, wgnkiwi, got the same problem on this end. I'll keep a record using the wheat bran, maybe we can compare notes on how the 2 different types do? The whole thing is so fascinating, and so complex, I can't get over it.

I remember reading that once the ph reaches 3.5 or something, the extended EM needs to be used soon. Well I don't have ph paper to test with, but I'm pretty sure by now the ph is pretty low. If it's below 3.5 can I still use it on my plants or should I just use it in the compost?

silverflute, it's my understand if the ph is below 3.5 the bokashi mixture is still good to use on both plants and in the compost. You just don't have as much microbial activity at that point. It's good but not the highest quality.

Oh, I see. Well, I'll probably just use it on the compost pile and use it from the bottle on my plants.

I got an eyedropper just for the EM1 to use on plants and other things. I'll say one thing for it, a little bit goes a long way! And with wonderful results!!

Hmmm. Doccat how much did you use with the eyedropper? And did you use it on all your plants?

I haven't started using it on plants as yet. I've been using highly diluted Bokashi juice on my houseplants and they are going great guns. I got the eyedropper to use when I start doing my seedlings. Hopefully this week. DH still needs to hang my lights.

I'm here to tell you that 50 lbs of sawdust is a lot!!! I just mixed up my second batch of bokashi. I think it will last for awhile.

katiebear

Sure....make me jealous. LOL!

Ok, the pH question:
Activation of EM1 Microbial Inoculant is a fermentation process (without air). The growth of the lactic acid bacteria produces lactic acid, which drops the pH. The goal is to get the pH to 3.5. This usually takes 1-4 days with warm water in a warm room.

Once the pH drops, you should let the product mature for another 5-7 days. You now have Activated EM1 that is ready to use.

At that point, you want to use the Activated EM1 up in 30-45 days.

Odor of fermented food waste:
The only mold you should see in a properly maintained bokashi bucket (yes you can make your own) should be white. It is usually a white fuzzy one. Green/blue and black mold are signs of not enough bokashi and too much moisture.

Odors come when not enough bokashi was used and the container was left open for an extended period of time. You can recover a smelly bucket by adding in a 1/4 cup molasses and stirring it into the waste. (I have added in some extra EM1 Microbial Inoculant at this time as well). In about 24 hours, it will have a pickled (sweet sour) smell.

The easiest solution is to make sure the buckets are sealed and to use about 2lbs of wheat bran bokashi per 5-gallon bucket.

Eric, the "bokashi juice", or more appropriately "bokashi leachate" that comes out of the spigot of my Happy Farmer bucket has always had a somewhat cheesy scent. I wouldn't call it an odor or say that it smelled bad, just that it was like the smell of cheese rather than a sweet/sour smell. I've diluted this and watered my houseplanst with it. They do very well on it.
The AEM that I brew has the sweet/sour scent. Is the cheesy scent of the bokashi juice of concern?

And, can the Activated EM1 be used to make Bokashi Bran?

wgnkiwi, Activated EM1 is Bokashi Bran.. I know it's a bit confusing. And I'm still a bit befuddled.....LOL

Oh, I meant can I used the Activated EM1 to make my own Bokashi Bran with Wheat/Rice Bran rather than purchasing on the web. At 2lbs per 5G it's going to get expensive pretty quickly.

g_m, did I read way, way back that you don't always use the bokashi bran in your buckets? Just spray with EM1 instead? Or was that EMeric that said that?

This message was edited Apr 2, 2008 9:25 AM