Bokashi Resources from Suzanne Lewis

Those of you who attended Suzanne Lewis' Anaerobic Composting presentation at Inspire were promised links to the videos referenced during the discussion. The links are below.

For those not familiar with Bokashi, here is an introductory video that just makes me want to go out and buy some stuff and start digging:

As this fellow said, Bokashi is a fermentation process, not a comosting process. "In home composting applications, kitchen waste is placed into a container which can be sealed with an air tight lid. These scraps are then inoculated with a Bokashi EM mix. This usually takes the form of a carrier, such as rice hulls, wheat bran or saw dust, that has been inoculated with composting micro-organisms. The EM are natural lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria that act as a microbe community within the kitchen scraps, fermenting and accelerating breakdown of the organic matter." (from Wikipedia)

Here are the links to other aspects of Bokashi:

Burying 1

Burying 2

Do-it-yourself Bucket system - a great idea for the ReUse crowd!

Do-it-yourself EM

If you make your own EM, and would be willing to share a bit with other MC/Rs please leave a comment after this post.

Wheat Bran based EM

A longer video on making, like, totally rad Bokashi, dude.

Check out the many other videos on YouTube - obviously there are a lot of people who swear by this system.

For years, I have wondered what the benefits of this process would be... I would still use my collection pail since I have no room near my kitchen for the buckets and bag of Bokashi. I would only dig it into the soil when I am not growing things (spring and autumn) so would either store it or compost it (go figure).

I found a video titled Bokashi vs. Composting that raised some interesting issues. Since it was delivered by a guy who looks like he is here to pick up the laundry I think I will do some fact checking before abandoning my Earth Machine. By the way, composting is not stinking, back-breaking work like some of these videos suggest. Neither is Bokashi labour free, unless they are willing to come over, make the EM, then make the Bokashi, and then bury the stuff for me, and it is certainly not inexpensive. Sheesh!

So, what do you think???