Another bokashi question (sorry!)

[maytreefrannie]

I've been using bokashi bins since October, and while I find theyr'e good for keeping down wet waste, they don't seem to rot away as quickly for me as it says on the leaflet.

Today I raked over a bed where bokashi had been dug in on 1st December, but there was so much still not decomposed - I could identify pieces of onion and other veg and large 'packs' of unrotted goo - that I thought it was best to leave it alone.

I followed the instructions as they're given and they are meant to decompose in 6-8 weeks.

The binfulls put into the compost bin in November are also still there, more or less as they were then.

I'd appreciate if someone can tell what I'm doing wrong, if anything.

Btw, apologies for opening yet another thread on bokashi, but I tried the search thingy and couldn't find this aspect of it anywhere.

[Flytrap]

I've never dug mine into the ground but maybe, as the weather over the winter has been generally very cold and often frozen that it hasn't had a chance to decompose in the ground. I reakon as the weather/ground gets warmer the rate of decompostion would increase dramatically.
Also, in the compost bin, I break up the bokashi bin contents with a large garden fork when I throw it it. Then mix it up with all the other compost in there. If you have just a big lump of bokashi stuff then I doubt if it would compost down very quickly if at all. Mixed in with a nice mixture of other stuff (grass cuttings, cardboard etc.) mine seems to be dissapearing quite fast but again in the warmer weather to come the bugs/insects/worms etc. will get to work much faster.

Flytrap.

[maytreefrannie]

Flytrap, that sounds really reasonable - the ground was frosted over quite a bit during the winter, so I guess it would be logical that there would be a slowing down of decomposition activity underneath.

And you're right about the compost bin - I just lob in the whole bucket contents in one big lump. When you explain it, it seems so obvious, but I hadn't thought of it.

>>>>>toddling off now to break up the bokashi binfull I added to the compost bin yesterday.

Thanks a million.