As promised in my Happy Trackin’ Magazine article – a post on my composting experiments!
When we moved onto our farm 7 months ago we quickly realized that while we were rich in rocks and gravel, we were very poor in soil of any kind! Our hope over the next few years is to create more and more growing space, but bringing in soil is expensive and not always supportive for the land. One other thing that we are rich in, like all horse property owners is poop! There is sooo much manure, but figuring out how to quickly turn that manure into something supportive for the garden and not just an annoyance is the key. Enter my bokashi composting experiment.
In October, my partner Patrick and I took a workshop in this composting method at Raincoast Farm https://raincoastfarm.ca/ in the Comox Valley. To say I am a beginner at composting and soil creation is an understatement, but I love to experiment and I am a hedgewitch at heart, so brewing potions and creating wonderful things for my plant friends with said potions is up there on my list of favourite things. So this article is about my very imprecise experiments and my successes and failures with this method.
So what is Bokashi and how does it apply to you? I am figuring that out as I go – so far I know that it is based on a Japanese and Korean style of farming and composting that supports and creates “living soil” full of the right kind of organisms, including worms and beneficial bacteria. Because of the fermentation process, the nutrients are retained as well as micro-organisms that support plant growth and reduce pests and disease. It also allows us here on the farm to use Bran Bokashi, a mixture of a fermented molasses mixture and bran (which I conveniently had extra of in the feed room) to compost all of our food wastes including meat and bones using a fermentation process that allows the retention of nutrients in the soil, something we very much need in our soil here.
At the composting workshop we received a starter (like a Kombucha starter) of Living Soil Liquid, which is a fermented molasses liquid, and recipes to start our own brew. As you can imagine, our countertop is now covered in large containers of this liquid, because brewing things is very satisfying, it allows me to make more Bran Bokashi and Bokashi with wood pellets, as well as alfalfa pellet fermented fertilizer for my plants, and because it can be used to “innoculate” our horse manure in the correct dilution. I kind of love how I can literally find all the ingredients needed (bran, wood pellets, alfalfa pellets and unsulphured molasses) in my feed room!
So let’s go back to the Bokashi composting method – we learned to make a bucket that I’ve been keeping indoors (for heat) and that has air holes in the bottom and is nested in another large bucket. Compost is added to the bucket and then the Bran Bokashi is sprinkled on top. I have another larger tote with air holes dug into my manure pit to keep it warm (pictured below) and add my bucket to this every few weeks and give it a stir to get the micro-organisms all mixed in.
Eventually I will add this into my manure pile or into our other compost bin and then into the garden once it’s well broken down.
For manure, I have poured diluted living soil liquid over a few of the piles and then covered with a tarp to retain nutrients (the rains have come here to the West Coast and there is an ideal moisture level so that the pile is moist but the nutrients don’t wash away) and am crossing my fingers – more learning needed here, but I will keep you all in the loop! They also shared in the workshop that manure can be soaked in diluted Living soil liquid to make it usable in the garden in about 2 weeks – I am definitely going to be trying this!
My hope is to have Ian from Raincoast Farm do a webinar on this method sometime in the coming months so I’ll also keep you posted on this.
Come back and visit for updates on my composting adventures! Alexa
