Bokashi the same as just burying food?

Bokashi CommunityCategory: bokashi composting questionsBokashi the same as just burying food?
Alyssa asked 5 years ago

Hey,

Can anyone fill me in on the difference between fermenting through bokashi and then burying in a garden vs. just straight burying food left overs in the garden and maybe turning it once in a while?

Thank you!

1 Answers
Nicki Casley Staff answered 5 years ago

The bokashi microbes in the bokashi bran multiply rapidly when added to food waste in the bokashi bucket. The fermented food waste may look very similar to the original food waste, a bit mushier round the edges and maybe some white mold on top. But, other than that, it doesn’t look like that different. However, a whole heap of changes happen to the food waste during fermentation. Its just that these changes are not visible to the naked eye. And, maybe most importantly, the bokashi’d food waste is now teeming with these garden-friendly bokashi microbes.

These bokashi microbes are what makes boakshi composting so valuable. They serve a number of benefits:

1. Firstly, these microbes are hugely beneficial to our gardens. Food waste is made of lots of complex proteins. These proteins are of no value to your garden in their current form. As the bokashi microbes get to work on your food waste they break these proteins up into amino acids; the small parts of the complex protein chains. Plants, with the help of the bokashi microbes, are able to take up the nutrients in the amino acids.

2. The bokashi fermentation process allows us to throw all food waste into our bokashi composter. The microbes help to kill the harmful pathogens in meat, cooked food, bones and even pet waste. Without the help of these microbes, these items are very hard to compost safely and without attracting pests.

3. Finally, the bokashi microbes significantly speed up the composting process.If you put your food scraps into a traditional compost pile or buried them straight into the ground they would (eventually) become soil. However, the process takes longer. During this time many of the nutrients could be leached out and much of the carbon in the compost could be lost to the atmosphere in the form of methane and carbon dioxide.

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