What should my food waste look like in my Bokashi bucket?

When food waste is treated with bokashi, it does not change its physical properties while in the bucket. Bokashi is a little like making pickles. The yeast and lactic acid bacteria in bokashi will begin the fermentation process. This stops food waste from rotting which causes bad smells. Bokashi will ferment the food waste and give it a cider-type smell. Some people think bokashi stinks. Yip, it does have a smell; but nowhere near how bad it would be if you put food waste in a bucket untreated for 6 weeks. Remember the immense benefits of bokashi.

• Nutrients will be returned to the soil
• Food waste will not generate methane gas as it would if dumped at a landfill
• Organic matter in soil improves the water holding capacity
• Healthy soil means healthy plants and better food yields

So what do you do with this bokashi-treated food waste if it doesn’t turn into compost in the bucket? 

Compost is the process of combing carbon and nitrogen. Food waste is considered the “nitrogen” element in composting. You now need to add the “carbon” element which is garden waste. Old leaves, twigs, egg boxes, the authentic Bokashi Bran® 1kg bag and box.

For every bucket of bokashi-treated food waste, make sure you mix about 4 buckets of garden waste to make a beautiful organic compost.

Turn the pile once a month to get good aeration. Making compost is so simple and doesn’t smell bad if your ratio of carbon and nitrogen is correct.

You must also make sure your compost pile is sufficiently moist. This builds up the heat in your pile which helps with the decomposition.