Curb Cabbage

I finally finished cleaning up my curb, and my neighbors rejoiced. Overall, they like what I am doing but yesterday some neighbors that had never spoken to me before did, and they were kind words.

You see, I am one of those people that sees grass as a desert, who thinks that mowing a lawn is a waste of time and fossil fuels, though my mower is hand pushed. I resolved this year to leave it in the basement. I only needed to pull up the rest of the grass and let the good plants take over. But I procrastinated. I have a coffee mug that says

"Procrastinators of the world unite and fight...
tomorrow"

and it suits me perfectly. So there it is, my curb with my fine cabbage in the middle of my labor.

And after.

I left a few plants I like there. I chose to divide the yarrow that had been growing quite well before I moved in all over my berm. Yarrow is a native plant that is excellent for xeriscaping. Yarrow also has a very long history of medicinal use all over the world. It was even used in divining the I Ching.

Anyway, this ended up being much more work than I like. I pretty much dug up EVERYTHING, including the cabbage to more effectively remove all plants in my disfavor. I also removed a lot of dirt. I think I took away several cubic feet which I dumped in back. I wanted the soil line to be lower than the curb and sidewalk so that perhaps I will have less plants growing in the street and that perhaps when it rains the water will collect in the soil rather than just washing away. I amended the remaining soil with some gypsum, greensand, and compost in all of it. Most was on top of a hardpan clay but some was on top of decaying concrete. I added a bit of lime to the clay parts. I also buried some bokashi below part of it. Another part has cat turds from bad kitties that keep pooping below some hedges that are not part of the veggie area and part has no additional fertilizer. I wonder how differently each part will grow.

I am sure I will still need to weed it, indeed, it still looks a little sloppy, but it is much better and hopefully will be less work. As you can see I replanted the cabbage. It has received a lot of admiration.

Bokashi Sidedressing and the Summerbowl

I said I would talk more about bokashi so here it is. Below is a picture of 2 tomato leaves, oversaturated to emphasize that one is greener than the other. The one on top is one of my ground tomatoes while the one on the bottom is from my box planter. I noticed a few weeks ago that the ground tomatoes have become distinctively less green than the box tomatoes. The reason why I believe this is so is because the box tomatoes have been enriched with bokashi.

And so, I decided it was high time I gave the ground tomatoes some of their own bokashi richness. I can't just top them with it. This is super rich stuff. Instead, I side dressed them.

I have a special skinny shovel that is perfect for digging deep narrow holes. I dug a hole as close as I dared to without damaging my tomato's roots. I have a little secret thing I've been planting in tandem with my bokashi, it's hair, hair of any kind be it my own, my pet's or in this case waste alpaca. Why do I have waste alpaca? If you wanna know check out Gabrielle Spins, my other blog which I have not been very active with. Perhaps I will again as it gets cold again but really, the dynamics of a garden are much greater than spinning.

I got interested in using hair to fertilize when I heard about Smartgrow. This seemed indeed to be something smart but it also seemed to be something I had available already that normally I just threw away. Anyway, burying hair below the bokashi means it will break down faster for my plants to use sooner.

Right on top of the hair is the bokashi. Then a little bit of backdirt mixed with some lime. Bokashi smells like vinegar and is very acidic. In part because this is in fairly close proximity to my well established plants it is a good idea to help the soil to maintain a go pH balance. Then I backfilled the rest of the soil. I hope that in a few weeks from now I will see some positive results.

My garden is revised many times during the growing season. This saladbowl is one example. I spared you the shot of the chervil fully bolted and gone to seed. Gone is the pretty flower phase, it was down to the seeds turning brown while the plants yellow. I pulled the majority of them up. Indeed I pulled out most of the lettuce. It too was bolting and bitter. The soil for being so overwatered had become pretty nutrient poor. Really, in all honesty, this is NOT an efficient way to grow vegetables. It was a pretty experiment.

Now I'm not ready to just chuck it all away so instead I pulled up the worst of it, leaving in particular these lovely beets. I mixed in some fertilizer, not bokashi this time. I don't think bokashi is a good option here, just a dry organic fertilizer with a bit of lime and some water retention crystals. This time, I hope to keep whatever I have here growing. With that in mind I planted just about the least sensible thing I could think of, a watermelon.

I will keep you posted on how that works out unless it is a complete disaster that is an embarrassment to me. I am not above being embarrassed and under-reporting my failures.

Growing Local

In response to my little survey, not as of this posting completed and what's in my head this rainy day, I have decided to write at least partly about compost. Compost has more than one definition and it seems to mean something else in different areas.

In the United States, we tend to think of everything that we throw into a compost heap as compost. In more British areas, I believe that they tend to think of the final product from a compost heap, and potting soil as compost. I have had a few clients ask me if I can deliver some 'soil' to their garden for topping when what they really mean is 'compost'. All that really matters is that you reader, wherever you are understand what I am saying.

OK, so where was I? Growing local, yes, I am trying to establish a self-sufficient garden, but I have imported a lot of material into it. The 1st is compost, meaning the final product. I get mine from a local source, Agrecycle. I also use Agrecycle to dispose of yard debris, both my own when it's bulky, and that of clients. They compost it and sell it right back to me. So that means that the compost that I have topped my garden with is local.

I also supplement my garden with various fertilizers. I am not a scientist but I try to balance out my various plants need, especially my tomatoes. This year I am finding it easier to fertilize them with my bokashi, which because it allows meat and cheese waste, is richer than other self-produced fertilizer. I also have buried a lot of pet hair and some alpaca fleece waste(I started spinning last fall after I acquired some very inexpensive western Pennsylvania raw alpaca fleece).

I became very interested in hair and other things composed of keratin after I heard about smartgrow. Smartgrow is simply a mat made out of human hair which sounds really bizarre. I won't explain it here, visit their site. Anyway, it seemed to me that I could replicate smart grow results just by using my hair, my pet's hair and all the alpaca waste I accumulated when I carded my fleece.

Anyway, It occurred to me today that not only am I reducing the waste I am producing but I am truly turning my garden into a locally grown garden in more ways than I thought. And by doing so I am greatly reducing my carbon footprint. I am also reducing my fertilizing costs.

And I haven't even discussed my rainbarrel project. There are multiple levels in which that is beneficial. But that is a future post.

Tomatoes (part II, frontyard)

Here's my prime gardening space, my front yard. Right off the bat I am breaking tomato growing rules. This tomato, a juliet cherry is growing under a globe arborvitae. I kinda ran out of room so I planted this and another cherry tomato under it. As it grew I broke the leaves off. It is too dark under the shrub for it to benefit much anyway and extra leaves can make it more susceptible to various afflictions. I also broke off extra branches. I will let it branch out a little, but not too much. I intend to train it to this railroad tie wall, possibly with landscaping staples. This borders the sidewalk and gets a lot of traffic so hopefully people walking by will sample these tomatoes and enjoy them. I think I will have some issues with nutrients here as the soil quality is pretty bad but I have taken steps to correct that.

Here's the 2nd wall tomato, a supersweet I think. It is on the driveway. I am training it towards the sidewalk. Supersweet cherry tomatoes will probably be in every tomato garden I have. They are very productive and taste great. They also are very early. They gratify me while I am waiting for my big tomatoes to do something. Unintentionally in this picture is a bottle of weed tea. I won't talk about weed tea in depth in this post but recommend any gardener to know about this.

Here is my most traditional tomato planting. These are sungold, an excellent cherry and costaluto genovese, a delicious and beautiful(to me) tomato. I can't even remember if there is any bokashi buried below these tomatoes or not but I did a lot of amending of the soil for these guys. Last year in this space I had artichokes. Unfortunately in Pittsburgh, wintering them outside is not a great idea. I dug them all up except for one which was killed by the elements despite extra mulching. Anyway, it might not be readily apparent here but I kept the diamond planting of strawberries around this bed. I also have decided this year to prune away most of the sideshoots and to strip my tomatoes of excess leaves. I want them to have a bare stem that goes above the companion plants around them. This should allow their companions to grow batter and also should make the tomatoes less likely to be infected with blight. I also have these tomatoes attached to a 7 foot stake. I will encourage them to grew very tall. There are some that believe that removing extra leaves makes tomatoes put more energy into growing tomatoes. Perhaps this is true.

Here's my tomato box. In it is a bucket of bokashi, buried very deeply. I think that this will be excellent for my tomatoes. Varieties here are carbon and brandywine. I think that this will need more water then the in ground tomatoes but this box is so big it might be be a big issue. I have to admit that around here, water is not the issue it is in other areas. We have 3 rivers so we never have to ration.

I'm going to post this in each post. Please take a moment to answer my little survey. Thank you!

Tomato Strategies (part I side and back yard)

This is one of those posts where I attempt to keep my thoughts coherent. I have 10 tomato plants this year and 6 tomato growing strategies. I've said it before, tomatoes are complicated. They are pretty demanding and there are multiple philosophies about how to grow them right. I wouldn't say that any one is the right way, but like so many things they do deserve examination. The things to strive for are productivity, tasty produce, beauty and low maintenance. Another question is how much space do I have and how well will it grow here? Well, my gardening style is freestyle. I'm not worried about maintenance because I am obsessed with gardening. I like to experiment, follow rules and break them. I like to try obscure things and throw some new ideas into the mix. And that is how I grow tomatoes.

We'll start with my most neglected tomatoes. A problem I have is indecision. This makes me put things off because I cannot decide what to do. Such has been the sad fate of these 2 cherry tomatoes, super sweet, and juliet. I just planted these here 2 days ago. They are on my back porch which does not get as much light as the front in an earthbox. The earthbox is a self-watering container that is nice for a lot of plants, most actually, but not all. I had some herbs in here that weren't very happy because they liked it less moist. Anyway, these poor tomatoes might do better than they are right now.

This is my straw planting. It is a Dr Wyche. A couple years ago I did a lot of plants in strawbales. This was an excellent experiment. I learned a lot about what makes different plants happy but I also found it to be fairly high maintenance. The biggest problem with bales is that things get dried out fast. This time I cheated a little. I mixed in a little moist stuff, um what's it called? Some people actually plant disposable diapers but I have yet to take that plunge.

Now that I have taken the time to research this tomato, I am finding it likes LOTS of water and usually is not very productive. Uh oh. This might not have been a good idea for this variety. I was actually thinking about mounding up some compost around this to keep it wetter. I might do that.

One more thing. This isn't a bale. It is a metal laundry basket I got at yardsale for 50 cents that I stuffed with straw. This allowed me to shape it the way I wanted to and to include a deep pot shaped cavity in the center. I am of the philosophy to plant my tomatoes as deeply as possible. Up to the top leaves. A lot of new gardeners don't know that the stems will grow roots. You want your tomatoes to soak up as much water as possible. This tomato was 3 times as tall as it is here because 2 thirds of it is underground.

This is my centerpiece tomato for the back yard. It is planted on top of some bokashi. I am hopeful that my bokashi will greatly reduce the need to fertilize all the tomatoes that are above it. You may have noticed that all of my tomatoes are planted with other plants including marigolds and basil. You can't see it so well but I also planted leeks with these 3 tomatoes. I think if I planted them alone that they might end up being more productive, I can't really say but I've decided that a very important thing for me is beauty. I think tomatoes look prettier with flowers. However, flowers are more than pretty. They attract pollinating and pest eating insects so I grow them together.

There's so much more I could say about tomatoes and I will say more, but in my next post. Next is my front yard tomatoes. Please humor me by responding to my little survey. Thanks for reading!

Chicken soup and other things

I love chicken soup in any kind of weather. Given my mass quantities of fennel, is as you see here, a primary ingredient, roots included. Also floating is fresh basil and fresh bay laurel, oregano, all from my garden. I don't have many onions.

This is a dragonwing begonia. I got it in a 4 inch pot on impulse.

Here's the same pot about 3 weeks ago. I think it is twice as large.

These are I believe, the same variety of mint, peppermint I think. I hope you notice that the sprig in my hand is greener. The pale mint is from a planting from last year while the green was potted this year. Clearly the old pot is becoming deficient of some things including nitrogen. I just added a little bit of dried cow blood to help it get back some vigor, but it probably needs some more help.

I suppose I won't talk about soil in depth here, but I do encourage all to look closely at your plants as they can't tell you what their needs are. Testerday somebody found this blog after doing a search for "enriching poor soil." Today it seems that this blog is #2 for that inquiry of blogs.

In this case the question is "fertilizing potted plants." There are many possible solutions, so don't take mine as the final answer but I occasionally lime my pots a bit, because the soil has a high organic content which turns acidic as it breaks down. Sometimes I fertilize with a seaweed mixture and very often I use some bokashi juice. If it is a plant with certain specific needs I may add some other things. Also, as the soil breaks down, the soil level in the pot goes down. I generally top it with some compost.

I have noticed that this year my beds seem to be in better shape, my plants seem to be less needy than they were last year. I guess I am doing something right.

Here we have a bunch of chamomile that is ready for harvest. Notice the round yellow balls with the white petals tucked under. When your chamomile blooms look like that, it's tea time! Pop them off and either make some tea or put them in a brown paper bag to dry out.

Why Bokashi is Important or Gabrielle's Garden Experiment

Todd is very interested in micro-organisms. He's brewed many beers and wines and just this spring grew some delicious oyster mushrooms. We joined the Western Pennsylvania Mushroom Club this spring and though some lectures seem long to me (sorry) it is overall a very interesting subject. This all ties in with what I think should be much more important to gardeners.

Today Todd told me that the white house lawn has been mycorrhizalized, if that's a word. Let me quickly say I greaty admire the Obamas for this and their organic vegetable garden as well as their beehives! Yes, the Obamas have bees!

Anyway, mycorrhizal fungi have a symbiotic association with plant roots. As a layperson, I want to explain this in a way that a layman can understand. I can't quite do that.

The company Mycorrhizal Applications, Inc. provides links to videos and articles that might, in a manner of thinking, mycorrhizalize your brain. Another company Gardens Alive sells many specific products of this sort of thing. I recently purchased a fungus gnat insect control, Knock-Out Gnats™ Granules, from them as well as a few other items. It's been about 2 weeks since I started using it so I can't fully endorse it yet.

Anyway, if you compost various things in using various methods you will probably generate a lot of good stuff for your soil. In the past I practiced vermiculture but for reason stated in a previous post, I got annoyed with it. The worst thing was the fungus gnats infestation which hopefully I will eradicate this year.

I think bokashi can inoculate your soil with mycorrhizal fungi if you introduce it to your bucket. I have ended up inoculation my bokashi with wormcastings leftover from my wormbins and I think that that might be very effective. I'm not a scientist but I do know that wormcastings are rich in micro-organisms. I have however mixed a lot of things into my bokashi bucket including just for fun, a little oyster mushroom spawn. Todd threw a handful into the little collection bucket that we store next to the sink to collect for the big bucket. We let the spawn go til it was pretty clear that it was colonizing the little bucket. indeed, I started to line the little bucket with wet newspaper the better to keep it going and to inoculate the waste before I transferred it to the main bucket. Typically it takes a few day to a week until the little bucket is full, or needs to be emptied because of smell or attracting things we don't like.

Anyway, I can't quite say that my method is the best. I just planted some tomatoes on top of buried bokashi, using the above method of inoculation with good stuff. I will let you know what results I have. I just think that ultimately the best stuff to make your garden grow well is probably already in your garden. Exceptions to that rule are new houses which probably have soil out of balance.

I feel that I need to add to this. I do not want to say anything that is untrue. I found a bokashi peddler that claimed that bokashi does not create ANY CO2 which is untrue. I don't think that bokashi would be the most effective mycorrhizal fungi inoculant. I actually think that a good yard of compost would be the best start. If I had a new house where the ground had been radically disturbed. I think I would spread a genuine granular mycorrhizal inoculant on my property. I'd probably start by covering all my soil with 3 inches of compost, then I'd rototil it into the top 6-12 inches, and then I'd inocculate it. I would probably also hold off on doing any major plantings for a while, perhaps I'd plant a cover crop to let the soil settle. A year later I'd do a more permanent planting.

I hope I am not overstating myself, I just do not want to advocate any snake oil, if you know what I mean. I would like to see people look locally for answers to things, I guess that's my main thing here.

More Stuff!

As promised, I am doing another post. It's May you know? There is just so much beauty I could cry, but I won't.

Here's the cheddarhead eating by my saladbowl, which is filling out nicely though this isn't its best side. Behind it is lacinato kale and an eggplant. Yup, I haven't caught up with everything here.

This planter has a matching one, sorta, on the other side of the steps. It started last year with lipstick salvia which i wintered with partial success. The salvia was kinda ragged so i filled it in with mizuna which already needs to be harvested, allysum and of all things hops! The hops are an unknown ungendered quanity. A friend gave me seedlings this spring and just for kicks I am keeping a few to see what's up. Who knows, I might end up having a new variety.

This porch still life is my fancy swedish ivy, mona lavender, with vases of chamomile and acapulco anise hyssop. I trimmed back the feral chamomile a touch but wanted to see if the buds would bloom in a vase. They have.

Chives are so easy and pretty, especially when they bloom. In the background is one of my bokashi buckets.

Well, I think that's it for today. I have a lot that I haven't covered.

Bokashi and Plumbing

I gave a bottle of bokashi juice to someone with a slow draining tub and after 2-3 weeks of treatment, it drains like normal. It looks like one aspect of bokashi has worked for me. This was a bottle with an off odor that I decided NOT to fertilize my houseplants with.

There's a Hedge

That straddles a border between my yard and an apartment building. I am working on taming it. It's just a mess! It was a combination of rose of sharon, spirea, and boxwood, with a ton of ivy choking it up and some wild morning glory and clematis (old man's beard) growing wildly. I am eradicating everything but the spirea and thinking about keeping some clematis but keeping it in check. I know also that I can't really kill the ivy but I am greatly reducing its quantity.

I am not taking pictures because it just isn't pretty. Instead I am posting some from last summer. Just looking at them cheers me up, even though I think I sorta look like my grandmother. Maybe that's why I chose that cotton dress. My grandmother had a vegetable garden and walked around barefoot all the time, squashing spiders with her feet sometimes, but that was in South Dakota.
So here's some summery pictures that cheer me up. It's hard to remember how beautiful my garden was. I am happy to see that my chamomile has self-seeded and that there are numerous chamomile plants growing, many where there aren't supposed to but I might just leave them be. Whether it's tea or bloom, chamomile is soothing.
My latest bit of bokashi juice smells like soy sauce. I guess that's decent.

Why is Bokashi a better Composting method?

On facebook a friend asked me "Never having heard the term bokashi, much less contemplated it, how is that different from putting our food scraps and lawn clippings in the compost bin the city gave us?" I must continue to preface what I say by admitting that I am new to this and am not an expert but bokashi... here's me trying to paraphrase what's said on numerous sources which I believe to be true...

• Bokashi is speedier and safer than tiger worms and cold composting.

I got rid of my worm bin last fall because it was high maintenance. I had a problem the 1st year with it becoming infested with fungus gnats which in turn did damage to plants in my house including seedlings I was attempting to start for my vegetable garden outside. I believe those gnats killed half of them at least. Then last summer it got infested with some other weird fly, not a housefly but something large resembling a mayfly. To keep my wormbin going I had to bring it inside and some worms also would escape. It was just kinda messy.

• Acidity kills human and plant pathogens

I hope this is true. I have avoided putting pepper scraps in because they eventually sprout, or at least that's what they did in my wormbin. Other seeds did too and it was kinda annoying. Considering that I am putting bones and cheese in here, I am increasing the likelihood of more weird bacteria. I don't fear it.

• 2-3 weeks turn-around
  

This is actually true but that's sorta a cheat. When you empty your bucket, it is not broken down compost that you may dress your plants with. What you have is pickled compost. You need to bury it somewhere and let that go for a few weeks. In theory this breaks down very rapidly, at least you may plant something in that area when the acidity dissipates.

• All your food waste, including meat may be composted
  

This is true and I love, love love that. That means you truly get to keep your actual trash can odorless. No more freezing Chicken bones and other mysterious meaty things!

• Bad smells are eliminated
  

I have found this to be true so far. It certainly has made my trash can less stinky. The stuff under the sink has not offended my nose yet, not the stuff sitting in the basement. The stuff in the backyard that is buried is not stinky either.

• Less pests around to annoy

My wormbin as stated above had some very unwelcome guests. No only that but the bin I kept under the sink kept attracting fruitflies. The bokashi bucket under my sink just doesn't provide a home for them so they are gone. Houseflies that could get into the regular trash if I had to throw old meaty waste have no where to go either so they are GONE. I LOVE this.

• Less work and less THOUGHT required

A motto I have is "Don't make me think!" I don't have to think "Can I put this in my bin?" If it's foodwaste, it's OK. I don't have to think about when the trash goes out. I don't have to think about the seeds sprouting from stuff I throw in. It all goes into the bucket!

Anyhow, I hope that this will be my last post on this for a while. What is pictured over there is some yogurt being added to the bucket. This adds Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, from some old yogurt in the fridge. I hope that this will help with the mix of micro-organisms.

Here's hoping for some real spring stuff happening soon. I might actually plant a few seedlings to get a slight head start on greens. I think it's time. I'll update for that as it occurs. I think I've address a lot of bokashi concerns here, but again I urge anyone interested to google it and help me correct any mistakes I make here.

Bokashimania

I just wanna show my method of layering my compost. I use the newspaper method. I like this because it is neat and free.

1. Here's what the bucket looks like when I open it. You see a soggy newspaper. I use that instead of wheatbran which is usually used. It's just plain newspaper. Some people inoculate the paper with stuff, but I choose not to bother. See the blog below to see how this is a risk.

2. Here's my kitchen scraps. There's lots of coffee grounds and in this batch some of my spent forced flower bulbs. There's also egg shell and often moldy cheese, shrimp shells and other mystery things from the refrigerator. The most risky thing I have put in this bucket is a whole turkey carcass, I've done this twice. If this decomposes quickly I will know that I am a success.

3. Here's some fresh newspaper. I guess 2 layers work better than one. This makes the next step less messy.

4. Here's me packing it down with my fist. Bokashi is primarily an anaerobic method of composting. packing this in reduces air pockets and also allows for more room to pack in more stuff. When I am done packing it down, I put the lid back on and I wash my hands.

In my house we generate a bout a layer a week. This varies quite a bit. I think it takes about a month and a half for us to fill up this bucket.

Aside from filling it up, every other day or so I check the bottom bucket for liquid. This I empty into my bokashi juice bottle.

See the bokashi link below for more on my trials and theories of bokashi. And PLEASE COMMENT!!! I'd love to have feedback on this!

More on Bokashi

I feel like I need to say more about bokashi. I am not an expert but based on checking around I have seen some claims that aren't completely true. Somebody out there claims that the bokashi method does not generate ANY greenhouse gases. That is simply not true.

I said in my last post that I am not doing this scientifically at all and that not completely true either. I understand some basic science, I took chemistry is high school though I have forgotten much of it I know that yeast microorganisms feed on sugars and that the end product is alcohol and carbon dioxide. Bokashi has some yeast in its mixture of efficient microorganisms (EM) therefore it must generate some CO2, unless there is another chemical reaction that changes it into something else after that and there isn't.

I live with a homebrewer, Todd which by the way is very nice and he has influenced me in daring to try bokashi without purchasing EM products from anybody. You see no matter what you do with your waste it will 99% of the time will decompose somewhere and somehow. The process is quite similar to brewing beer and winemaking.

Usually when Todd starts a batch of hooch he sterilizes everything that comes into contact with it and when his batch is ready he mixes in a specialized strain of yeast. I think he splits up most batches into several vessels to brew that he inoculates with different yeasts. The craziest thing he has done is to brew something with a 'wild' yeast, that is something that was just floating around somewhere and in many instances the end result has been very nice. This has been my approach to bokashi.

I will borrow from a discussion of hard cider. We start with a trusting free-spirit describing their method of making hard cider.

Trusting free-spirit:

1. buy a gallon of apple cider
2. take off the top
3. cover bottle top with cheese cloth
4. stir every day until fizzy
5. put an airlock on bottle
6. forget about cider bottle fermenting in the back of the closet
7. remember cider.
8. drink cider.

it's really that easy.

Todd's response:

she leaves the door unlocked.
this means friends might come over and give you a surprise party,
or you could come home and find your tv is gone and someone took a dump on the floor.

by using a known yeast, and sanitary practices, you can control more of the process and get reproducible results. to be fair, i have made a few brews from wild, spontaneous fermentations and haven't suffered yet. you can culture your own wild strain(s) like sourdough and use it over and over again

Bokashi is quite different from making hooch. You are dealing with a solid product that comes out solid and there are many varieties of micro-organisms involved. But I believe that the worst case scenario is better than that in brewing. If I have a batch that is off it will decompose anyway. And because I am thrifty I will try it. If I end up with a bunch of putrid batches I'll change my ways but so far I have emptied about a half a dozen buckets and they've been OK. In a few weeks I'll check the bed I've been burying them in. It's just thawing out so I don't think that they've had a chance to properly decompose but the bed does not smell bad.

My Bokashi

This is about an experiment. It all starts with this little blue bucket full of kitchen waste. Like many of you I tend to fill mine up until it is overflowing. I guess if it were warm out I wouldn't because it'd attract flies but right now that is not a problem.

There's lots of things I could do with this. I could throw it into the trash like most people do but I am a composter. I feel guilty when I contribute unnecessarily to our mountains of waste and I know that when properly processed by me, that this bucket will help my garden grow.

So I put it in this larger bucket beneath my kitchen sink. This is my homemade bokashi bucket. Bokashi is a method of composting that I started last fall. I like it because it is OK to put animal products like meat and cheese as well as the usual eggshells in the bucket. I even sometime put hair in it. It is supposedly less smelly than some other methods (I won't vouch for that until I pass a summer doing this) and it has reduced the fruitflies that have infested my kitchen to nothing. I think I find the flies most annoying and don't miss them.

My bokashi bucket set-up is this.

I have 2 buckets that nest together and a lid that fits on top. This lid is what keeps the flies out. I have 2 buckets because the one on top has holes drilled on the bottom of it to drain off any liquid from the compost. This liquid comes from liquid already in the compost and liquid that is created as it decomposes. If I let the liquid collect in the bucket with the compost it would get mighty stinky, but I don't.

Instead I let a bit collect in the bottom bucket and periodically pour it into a small bottle. In theory the liquid should smell like silage or beer or vinegary, but not so much like poop. In practice it has smelled like all of the above at different times.

This liquid is not a waste product. It is good for helping your drainpipes stay clear. The microorganisms that liquefy compost will liquefy whatever collects in your drainpipe. It also is a good fertilizer for your houseplants. I am inclined to pour the bad smelling stuff down the drain but that that smells edible, I mix with water for my plants. They seem not to have suffered from it.

Every source I have seen mentions inoculating your compost with the proper micro-organisms and that is something I have not bothered to do. I want to see if it is possible to do this without all the fuss described by others.

I really have not described in detail what this is about. What I have been doing is a primary stage of decomposition and it is mostly anaerobic. I cram the stuff in my bucket pretty tight. I put newspaper on top on each layer I so I can pack in in really good without getting messy. Sometimes I top it with a little bit of something like yogurt to give it some lacto bacillus to grow on, but lately I haven't. It sorta depends on what's in there already and how it smells.

My method is not scientific at all.

Eventually that bucket will get full. When that happens, I put it in the basement to sit for at least 2 weeks. Really, since I have 2 bokashi buckets set-up because my system is so cheap, it sits longer than that. That's what this final photo shows, my 2nd bucket sitting in the basement. I still drain out the liquid from the bottom like I do the bucket in the kitchen, indeed, in theory, this liquid should be more uniform than the fresh bokashi upstairs.

The next step is to bury your bokashi outside. My sources say that this compost that has thoroughly been inoculated by all sorts of micro-organisms will breakdown rapidly once it sees air. Note: it does not decompose in the bucket, it just starts to decompose, if anything it pickles.

For more information google it. Wikipedia is a decent start. There's also a few videos on youtube. I have a feeling that there will be more information out there.

I intend to update as my experiment succeeds or fails.

Bokashi

This morning I discovered this. I currently have a worm bin but I'll tell you, there's a lot of trouble with that. Troubles I have had include fruit flies, fungus flies, other creepy crawly things and this year another weird fly.

I love the fact that I can put MEAT in this.

I'd post links but at this point all I've done is googled it. I've never heard of this being done in Pittsburgh. I will post pictures of what I do.