Nothing in the natural world gives us the picture of a full cycle of life like composting.
Composting is simply breakdown of complex plant and animal remains into simpler substances that can be assimilated by plants.
Composting usually mimics humus formation in nature – conversion of fallen leaves into compost.
However, it may take over six months for the final product, which is quite some time.
That said, in what ways could we hasten this process?
COMPOSTING
In normal composting, high nitrogen wastes (the very mushy ones) are combined with high carbon wastes (the dry stuff like straw) and let to age over time.
Of course there is a moisture – air balance that makes things work here.
In other words, conventional composting involves a balancing act composed of aeration, moisture and the type of material you put in the compost mound.
Now, this complexity acts as a deterrent to many who desire to compost their kitchen scraps.
So what if I were to introduce you to a composting technique that is both faster and can accommodate any form of organic waste?
Welcome to Bokashi composting.
Bokashi is a Japanese phrase loosely translated to mean fermentation of waste matter.
It basically involves two steps:
First, the waste material is fermented for a period of a month.
Lastly, the fermented waste is buried under the soil for another one month for conversion to compost.
Sounds simple?
Oh yes.
However, it requires a bit of precaution in the fermentation stage.
RICE WATER AND MILK
Some work needs to go into preparing the right bacterial mix to aid in the fermentation.
Rice water and milk play a crucial role in this regard.
Of course you could purchase this microbial mix also called EM1.
However, how about we make it for ourselves?
The first step involves storing the rice wash water in loosely sealed containers for a week.
Oh yes…that water after washing rice is what I mean.
Try your best to use non-chlorinated water because you want to create a microbial innoculum – a colony of useful microorganisms called lactobacilli.
Note the word ‘LACTO’ means milk.
So after one week, add 1 part of the stored rice water to 10 parts of milk – preferably raw milk.
What do I mean?
If you have 100ml of rice water, add it to 1 litre of milk and so on.
Let the rice water-milk mixture sit through a week, after which you’ll notice the curdling of the milk.
Filter off the curdle and add some molasses or sugar to the remaining liquid part also called the serum then store this mixture for a week.
The reason behind the sugar addition is so that the microbes may have a source of energy to multiply rapidly.
Remember that at this stage, your solution will have that slight soury smell reminiscent of yoghurt.
After a week, dilute the serum with water in the ratio of at least 1:50 – by this I mean that you add 5 litres of non chlorinated water to 100ml of the serum.
For storage of this innoculum, you could soak sawdust, wheat bran, rice husks, or torn newspapers in this diluted serum, then dry for storage and use.
COMPOSTING BIN
Ensure to have two buckets of the same size with bottle top-sized holes drilled on the underside of one.
Place the bucket with the drilled holes inside the undrilled bucket and start layering your bin with kitchen waste.
Ideally this set up could be placed in the kitchen to ensure that the scraps are as fresh as possible.
Introducing rotting waste into the bin could lead to proliferation of bad bacteria.
Add thin layers of kitchen scraps while covering them with the dried sawdust soaked in the innoculum.
Repeat this step until the bucket is full, press down the waste and seal for a month.
Ensure that the bucket remains shut with minimal disturbance.
During this time, the kitchen scraps won’t stink at all.
However, white mold will start spreading all over the bucket leading to an odourless liquid discharge collecting in the lower bucket.
This liquid discharge is called ‘bokashi tea’ and is ready made fertilizer which could be diluted 10 to 20 times and used to water plants.
After a week, the mold-colonised kitchen waste could be removed and buried in trenches in your garden.
Alternatively, it could be buried in soil inside a container for the decomposition process to complete – that is, if you don’t have a garden.
Most of the scraps will have converted into compost, a month after burying them in soil.
This compost could then be used to top dress crops or grow food directly if doing intensive gardening.
FINAL NOTE
Bokashi composting is a revolution in waiting especially among small-scale gardeners willing to produce more food using very little space.
However, it’ll take effort, commitment and a love for waste to do that.
So are you ready to roll up your sleeves and dig in?
