There is an abundance of food scraps in this house. Like an overload. Every meal leaves behind veggie off-cuts, avo skin, fruit pips, egg shells and sweet potato peels.
Vancouver has a slick composting system… (blah blah blah, yes Debbie, we know Vancouver is brilliant at any-and-everything, you tell us all the time, blah blah blah), but really they do. The council DELIVERS composting bins TO YOU. Sigh. So when we returned to SA, and the common practice of being surrounded by food scraps accompanied us, we felt sick to our stomachs as we opened the bin and threw the beautiful, nutrient-rich waste away. We weren’t equipped to compost. It felt wrong. Intentional sin. A bit like buying un-free range eggs.
Fortunately, freedom returned when my toddler started at a farm-school and food scraps were requested as animal food. FAN-TASTIC. Our ‘waste’ was being lovingly carried in chubby, grubby hands, into the mouths of horses, goats, rabbits and chickens. Beautiful. Order (and soul satisfaction) was restored, but the need to compost at home was tapping me on the shoulder; I needed a long term solution.
And so I got chatting with Earth Probiotic about their food digester and bokashi bran. Bokashi what? I’m intimidated by hippie words I know nothing about. Bokashi, I thought, was one of those. But actually, it’s Japanese for “organic fermented matter”. Not so intimidating after all.
And so I gave this Bokashi Food Digester setup a go. ‘Haaaang on’, you may be asking… ‘What’s a Bokashi food digester?’ – well, that’s a good question.
‘The Bokashi Food Digester is an all natural, non toxic and 100% biodegradable solution allows all food waste to be composted. Food waste nutrients benefit soil thus improving soil health and improving plant and vegetable health.’
The idea is that you add food scraps to your food digester, alternating your scraps with a handful of bokashi bran. Bokashi is wheat-bran inoculated with a mix of probiotic bacteria, yeast and fungi. The goal? Bokashi juice. Bokashi juice is to your garden like water is to a man in the desert. Like chocolate to a child; like wine to a parent.
The Bokashi Food Digester is particularly well designed in that it comes with a sieve which is placed in the bottom of the bin so the bokashi juice can settle below it (to be tapped out) and won’t form mushed sludge with your food scraps. Our family filled a 20L food digester in just over a week (and the poor animals at school, got nothing). We layered our scraps between handfuls of bokashi and let it sit for 2 weeks. The bin lid fits tightly so there is no off-putting stench attracting flies, rodents or unwanted guests. Neat and tidy, just how I like it.
After two weeks, I tapped off my bokashi juice, and got almost 2L of the browny/orangy goodness! (Be sure not to store this next to your kombucha – they look identical). Wowzers. Bearing in mind, you need to dilute your bokashi juice heavily with water before use as it is highly acidic. 1:100 for lawns, 1:300 for gardens and pot plants, 1:500 for succulents and 1:1000 for sensitive plants. Also, your juice should be used within 24 hours after tapping for the best results.
It’s a fantastic system. It’s neat and easy to use. The empty bokashi bran tub can be used to store food scraps in your kitchen and then emptied into your large digester at the end of the day. After you’ve tapped your juice, you can add the food scraps to your worm farm, or bury it in the ground.
Keen to have your very own Earth Probiotic Bokashi Food Digester? Well luckily, Earth Probiotic, Our Greenish Life and Green Goods are giving one away! The prize is worth over R200. Yes, please.
Enter here:
- Like Our Greenish Life on Facebook,
- Like Green Goods on Facebook,
- Comment below with your favourite green tip/green concern.
Share this competition on Facebook for an extra entry.
Thanks for entering. Good Luck!
Contact Earth Priobiotic
(t) (27) 011 783 3380
(e) info@earthprobiotic.com
Physical Address: 3 Springhill Close, Moodie Hill, Morningside, Gauteng.
Web: www.earthprobiotic.co.za
Terms and Conditions
The competition runs from Wednesday 08 July – Wednesday 15 July 2015.
This competition is open to Cape Town residents only.
The winner will be chosen randomly and contacted via email.
Winner will be announced on the Our Greenish Life website and social media channels on Wednesday 15 July.
THIS COMPETITION IS CLOSED. Congrats to Valerie Duffield Anderson who won this awesome compo.
