Grow Your Own Magazine

got my first juice out of bokashi system today.

glad to see it working it looks like very week tea.

does anyone go through the bran quicker than its supposed to last. small bag meant to last 2 months but i cant see it lasting that long.

You may be using more than you need, if anything we go through bran slower than it says. Suppose it depends what you put in there as to how much you need, I tend to add a bit more if I've added a smelly fish skin but not very much at all with onion peel, for example.

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Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

What are you planning to do with the juice Hawthorn? So far I've only tipped mine down the sink to "enliven" the septic tank. I don't get alot as it is the office kitchen bokashi bucket.

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Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

at the mo down the drain but im going to use it as feed for my veg when needed in the summer.gonna try and feed 1 of my tom plants with bokashi and the other with traditional tom feed to see the difference.

At the moment I am adding no bran at all and just using it as a kitchen compost box but that is mainly because we have been in turmoil here - and it works fine just for usual peelings and teabags/coffee grounds. But yes, I found I was going through the bran quickly too. Now the weather is milder and I haven't got to worry about the second box freezing solid outside the back door I will re-instate the bokashi bit - but take your tip about using less bran, Alison.

Incidentally, does anyone know why you can't put teabags in it? They rot down OK in my compost heap, so that bit really surprised me.

Woohoo, this post turned me into a sprouter (as it were)! Go me!

I was looking at these, but my OH thinks they look a bit expensive. I've persuaded them all to put the peelings in the compost bin, and we recycle all the other stuff that the council collects, but I was keen on going a bit further if we could. Problem is, my garden budget for the year is £200 and I've already spent £30, so another £70 for the 2 bins and the bran only leaves me £100 for the rest of the year. I'm interested in hearing other people's experiences before buying.
I tried a wormery once, a long time ago, but the worms died. They were on a south facing patio, and I cooked them.

They're not as much as that - I only paid £25 - see this link Additional bins

Thanks for that link, the prices obviously vary quite a bit. The £70 was in a catalogue that came throught the door, and from Original organics they are £55 for the double pack! Worth shopping around obviously, but at that price it looks well worth giving it a go.

That explains alot! All we get in the office bokashi bin is t-bags and fruit. So the t-bags shouldn't be in it? I had better tell them!

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Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

I didn't know you couldn't put teabags in either, however I only put stuff in my bokashi that can't go in either the wormery or normal compost bin as I don't want to use excessive bran where I don't need to. Does mean thought that it takes an age to fill up the bins!

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

I only "know" about the teabags because the - laughingly called - instruction leaflet said "no tea bags" on it. I don't know why it can't cope with them - are the actual bags "plasticky" these days?

I put teabags in mine, they rot down ok haven't caused me any problems.

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Some teabags contain plastic bits which don't compost as I've heard people complaining that they still have bits left when they turn out their bins / wormeries but the ones I get seem fine and are one of my worms favourite treats.

__________________

Some of us live in the past, always talking about back then. Some of us live in the future, always planning what we are going to do. And, then there are those, who neither look behind or ahead, but just enjoy the moment of right now.

Which one are you and is it how you want to be?

I will have to put a T-bag questionnaire out at work - everyone has their own!

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~
Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
~ Mary Kay Ash

A T-Bag questionaire?

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Shortie

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children; one of these is roots, the other wings" - Hodding Carter

Well, quite

I shall continue to bung the teabags in. All this anaerobic stuff is all very well but it does all get bunged on the compost heap at the end of the day, after all

How are people doing with this? My first bucket finished its fermentation today. It was covered with white mould as the instructions said, and I'd been draining the liquid. I know it isn't meant to look like compost, but everything is totally recognisable. I buried it into the garden. I was hoping that it would form the base of my bean trench, but I felt I was polluting the garden. It smelled very acid. Could someone who has more experience let me know how this has gone for them.

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I could not live without a garden, it is my place to unwind and recover, to marvel at the power of all growing things, even weeds!

http://potagerplot.blogspot.com/

Would it be possible to use any bucket with a drain and just buy the bran, saving about £40?

Mine have a perforated platform, which keeps the waste up, and lets the liquid drain through. I suppose you could make something like it, but it must have an airtight lid because it is an anaerobic process. The price for 2 buckets from Recycle Now was around £25, so by the time you get buckets with lids, something for the plaform, and the taps, then make them, I don't know how much you'd save?

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I could not live without a garden, it is my place to unwind and recover, to marvel at the power of all growing things, even weeds!

http://potagerplot.blogspot.com/

Barley sugar it sounds fine, it's supposed to look pickled rather than decomposed and it does have a bit of a strange smell to it sort of cider ish.
You could use it in a bean trench but make sure you cover it with soil it'll break down really quickly, approx 8 weeks or so, there is some footage on you tube demonstrating this will see if I can find it.

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

can't work out how to create link, sorry, thickoid alert!
Just go onto you tube and search for bokashi there are loads of useful videos, hope that helps!

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

i did notice that it makes your compost bin quite wet so ive had shredded paper. ran out of bran now so have to order some

I got one of these a couple of months ago, I used about half the amount of bran I was supposed to for the time it took to fill the bin (3 weeks or so- it seemed to compact down amazingly well, was very surprised at how much went in before it filled up).

After leaving the full bin for a couple of weeks there's white mould like there's supposed to be.Haven't done anything with the contents yet, but will have to tomorrow as my other one's just filled up.

Got plenty of juice too, which has seemed to be responsible for the complete recovery of my weak lemon balm (just removed mildewed leaves, added juice & it's double in size already!)

Quite impressed with the system so far, interesting to see how it deals with smells/flies when things warm up a bit . . .

Can't you just buy a 70p bag of bran from the dreaded tesco's does it have to have anything else in it why do you have to send away for something that is so easy to get in the shops? Confused! Mind it doesn't take much! Jan