There’s a “Feed me, Seymour” vibe about my pea pods right now. They’ve been developing so quick you can nearly hear them. Of late they took steps to swallow a raspberry shrub so I directed them back toward themselves and presently they are a kind of pea vault that murmurs with supportive pollinators.
I don’t have any idea how these children will taste yet in numerous ways they will be enhanced by old extras. It doesn’t sound scrumptious yet the proof will be in the pop. Under their solid roots are the remaining parts of long stretches of telecommuting morning meals, snacks and suppers put first through a compost system that I’ve landed on after dabbling with many others. Furthermore, I believe it’s my #1.
Using Bokashi to fertilize the soil began in Japan. It includes a fraction of the work of keeping a sourdough starter alive and is the sweetest-smelling way to keep leftovers in the loop and use them to grow healthy soil.
An Agriton Essential Bokashi system gets you an air-tight bin with a drip space at the bottom and a tap to drain off the liquid. To get the process going you will need some Agriton bran inoculated with effective microorganisms, which uses lactobacillus bacteria that we know from sauerkraut and other home fermentation projects. Two bins give you a chance of filling one while the other does its magic. Each layer of food waste goes into the bin between a handful of bran. When the bin is full it sits for two weeks (which is where your second bin comes into play). After that you bury the pickled food waste under a good depth of soil in yours or someone else’s garden.
Uniformly brown
Unlike other compost systems where everything gets uniformly brown, bokashi turns the food waste more brightly coloured as if someone just tapped on an Instagram filter. Its tang puts off the potential lovers of composting food that we don’t want around our garden, and encourages the soil microbes to get to work on it next. The real beauty is that every calorie goes back into the soil, minimal amounts of methane are released as it’s a cold and anaerobic system and your plants are fed in a closed loop of grow, eat, compost.
The solution to food waste is to stop wasting it. Next best step is to share our surplus rather than bin it. With us all doing our part in some way we can make a #betteralterantive.