http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bright_red_tomato_and_cross_section02.jpg

Nutrient Dense Vegetables and Produce – Taste Great!

What are you doing with all your food scraps and waste material? I hope you are not throwing them away. More and more people are coming to realize that keeping the scraps at home is the way to go. You can convert the scraps into a real treasure and it’s easy. It’s a lot less work than hauling trash out to the curb.

Video Bokashi Fermenting

We’re going to use the term “Bokashi Composting” although those who know a little more about this science know it’s not a composting process because it’s done with specialized microbes in a fermenter. You don’t have to turn a pile. You don’t have to go outside and be assaulted by bugs and stinky piles. And you can do it all year around right in your kitchen. Anyone can do it.

Convert all your food scraps into chow for the microbial flora living in your garden. You can use the tea on the house plants and on the lawn. If you’ve got a vegetable garden or want to grow really great produce, this is the way to go.

One of the points we’ve made frequently is that you can Bokashi ferment literally anything organic.

Bokashi – Dig it! 10 Reasons to get started

It’s great saving money because you don’t have to buy a lot of fertilizers or pesticides. And it’s a great feeling watching plants respond with vibrant colors and growth as your garden soil is restored. And I know my garden is free of toxins and chemicals that adversely impact all kinds of animals and insects that are beneficial.

But there is another important point to be made. My vegetables taste great. I know I’m getting far healthier food out of my garden then I can buy in any supermarket. I can even measure objectively proving that good soil and healthy natural microbial flora much improve my produce.

BRIX – A Simple Objective Measure of Quality

That tomato looks so tasty….wouldn’t you agree? But we’ve all had the experience of buying what we thought looked really good and being a little disappointed to find it didn’t taste all that great. Most store bought tomatoes don’t taste all that great. Many people describe the experience of biting into a store bought tomato as akin to biting into cardboard.

Growers know what the public will buy. Most people go for “perfection” by judging how fresh the food looks. If it is free of any blemishes it’s all the better. Right? Why do you think food coloring, waxes, and packaging are so important? Do you really know what you’re getting? Probably not.

A lot of savvy consumers know how to go deeper. They look at the BRIX index. You can quickly in a matter of a couple of minutes with a sample determine on a relative scale how the produce measures in quality. And the great news is that BRIX correlates well with taste. If you test two tomatoes, apples, oranges, heads of lettuce, or any other product you want to purchase, the one with the higher BRIX will almost always taste better. And it will be richer in nutrients. That’s because BRIX is a simple way of measuring nutrients.

You may want to read a little more about how BRIX measurements are impacting farmers and consumers.

The Brix Movement Growing for Quality

How to Measure BRIX

If you want to do it yourself, it’s pretty simple. You need a hand-held refractometer. This is a device that allows you to put a drop of liquid from the plant obtained by crushing the fruit or leaf onto a glass surface that can then be pointed at the light. It allows you to see instantly how light is bent (refracted) as it passes through a prism.

Here is a reference by Rex Harrill you might want to read if you are interested in knowing a lot more about measuring and interpreting BRIX.

BRIX Book

Since people have been building up tables and scoring measurements for all kinds of produce to determine how nutrient dense and tasty they are, it is easy to compare your home grown produce against the supermarket, farmer’s market, or industrial farmed produce.

What is known and very interesting is that the higher the nutrient content, the more tasty the produce will be, and that high quality soils contribute enormously to quality.

Depending on the list, you will see produce rated, poor, average, good, or excellent depending on the BRIX measurement. I can tell you that in my experience most store bought produce measures poor to average with occasional higher readings but I’ve never found measurements in the excellent category.

Produce in my garden with bokashi tea and waste mixed into the soil ranks high above store bought produce. And I never use any fertilizers.

Animals Know Quality!

It’s interesting to note many reports on animal behavior with regard to BRIX. It appears that foraging herds prefer grasses that have higher sugar content (elevated BRIX readings).

Brix Pastures

Dairy cattle have been observed to produce more milk in higher BRIX pastures and consume smaller amounts in foraging relative to lower BRIX pastures. By improving pasture land, one can anticipate greater productivity.

There is much to be learned by objectively measuring BRIX. Virtually any plant can be tested. It’s as simple as crushing the leaf or stem to obtain a drop of sap which is then placed on the prism for immediate readings.

Bokashi fermenting gives you the chance to run your own backyard comparison. Grow your own produce. Run your own taste test…..store bought versus backyard bokashi garden crop.

I think a taste test will show you which is better. For those of you who want to quantify the differences, get a refractometer.

It’s a good feeling to know you can recycle all those food scraps back to soil in a matter of days improving soil and produce without having to add chemicals and pesticides to your garden.

We’ve had a mild winter in the Pacific Northwest.  Those who have been enriching the soil and restoring microbial flora are going to enjoy a bountiful garden.

Some of you may be pondering the idea….restoring microbial flora?  What’s that all about?   It’s remarkably simple and anyone can do it on virtually any scale.  In one of the earlier blogs we talked about living soil and feeding the soil to improve the organic content and microbial flora.

“Food Scraps for a Vibrant Garden”

At home you will need a fermenting system and bokashi culture mix.  You add the culture mix to your food scraps and exclude oxygen to get a fermented end product.  The end product is the broken down food waste after it has been metabolized.  We call it tea and cake.

The idea is to break away from your dependence on chemical fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides.  They are doing little good and result in much damage to the soil.  You’ve got everything you need to enrich the soil right at home and it will cost a lot less.

If you use Bokashi tea and cake you have no need for any of the chemical fertilizers and save lots of money recycling all of your organic waste at home.  Use the tea diluted 1/50 to 1/100 with water on the lawn and watch how well it responds.  And you can then safely ferment your grass clippings.

Bokashi Composting or Fermenting – What’s the difference?

Bokashi Composting is a term used to describe processing waste with microbes in a sealed container.  It’s a fermenting technology.

No methane is produced.  No heat is produced.  It is very fast and works all year in every season.  You can do it in your kitchen, garage, living room or laundry room.  It eliminates the decomposing odors frequently linked to waste processing.

It’s the opposite of composting……..truly a fermenting or pickling process that is delightfully simple.  You can learn a lot more about it by following the link below.

“A Gardener’s Dream”

As you become more and more familiar with this simple and wonderful way of cycling waste to enrich the soil, you’ll have questions.  I get a lot of questions and read the advice others have given.

We provide an FAQ to help newcomers quickly build knowledge about this process

http://www.bokashicycle.com/FAQ.html

There are two questions that surface frequently and the advice given is frequently incorrect.

Q: Can I put my Bokashi fermented material in the compost?

The proper answer is “Don’t do it”.  If you ferment the food scraps and then put them into a compost bin or compost pile, you are defeating the process and getting a far inferior end product.

During the pickling process done anaerobically (with oxygen excluded) many microbes and fungi are forming in the rich metabolized tea and cake produced.  You want to then use that end product to feed the microbes in the soil.  This results in the expansion in soil microbe numbers and diversity.  The organic content will quickly elevate.  Carbon is sequestered.  High quality is produced in a matter of days.

Compost bins and piles are designed to oxidize waste materials.  Oxygen will kill most of the microbes in your freshly produced bokashi products.  It will also reduce the rich content by more than 50% as much material will be oxidized and liberated as carbon dioxide.  You’ve taken great product for your garden and destroyed it.

Moreover, you won’t expand the population of soil microbes because compost piles at the elevated temperature don’t have the microbes normally colonizing soil.  Those microbes are destroyed when you compost.

The proper use of bokashi fermented end product is to mix it with garden soil.  Put it back into the ground where it can do real good.  It will attract earthworms, restore quickly soil microbial flora, and provide to the plants many nutrients and trace minerals.  Your garden will thrive.

Q: What do I do when the ground is frozen?

The wonderful thing about Bokashi tea and cake is that it is pretty stable as long as you keep it away from oxygen.  When the ground is frozen, put it in a bin.  Leave it outside all winter.  It will be just fine.  Toss a shovel of dirt and leaves in the bin before the freeze.

As Spring rolls around with those warming spells, the fermented pickled waste in your bin will quickly be transformed by any soil in the bin to a much richer soil that can then be mixed in the garden when it is workable.  It will all disappear in a matter of days when mixed with soil.

In the fermenting process all of the food scraps collapse releasing a lot of tea so you won’t have as much bulk in the bin as you might have feared.  You can see how it works in a 3D animation.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/videodvd.html

Finally, I’d like to point out that Bokashi fermenting is very scalable.  You can process any volume of waste from hundreds of pounds to hundreds of tons.  On an industrial scale we refer to the tea as AgrowTea and the cake as AgrowPulp.   What about organic farming and Bokashi?

A lot of organic farmers have come to appreciate this is a wonderful way of improving the soil without relying on manure and compost.  It is cleaner and faster.  Some organic farmers worry about using recycled waste on the farm. Clean waste (food scraps) processed by fermenting is far safer than compost.  Pathogens are killed in the process.  No chemicals are used in the process.

If you’re an organic farmer, you’ll have to decide for yourself.  You may want to make your own product on the farm.  It’s easy.  Here’s a little history.

Q: Can I use AgrowPulp™ and AgrowTea™ on an Organic Farm?

AgrowPulp and AgrowTea are produced naturally by allowing soil microbes to metabolize organically produced waste materials.  No pesticides, chemicals, hormones or antibiotics are used in the process.  No manure or other animal waste is used in processing the 100% organic (plant derived) materials that are then fermented.

Composting sites accept yard waste and sludge.  These materials are not allowed in bokashi fermenting because of the risk of unwittingly contaminating the end products with chemical fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides, hormones, pharmaceuticals, and heavy metals.  AgrowPulp and AgrowTea are sustainable farming practice products addressing the need to restore soil microbial flora and organic soil content and nutrients.

Nature Farming versus Organic Farming:

There are several kinds of farming systems practiced in the world.  One major concern health conscious farmers and consumers express is the need to sustain and maintain safe practices in production.

Nature farming has been applied repeatedly in Japan, India, Thailand, China, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, and the United States, among other nations, as a chemical-free, organic farming technique specifically adapted to climate and agricultural management conditions.

Although the definitions for farming methods frequently overlap, we can list them in the order of least sustainable to sustainable methods of practice based on the potential for hazardous non-organic toxin potential as follows;

(1)Intensive Farming: A practice commonly associated with developed regions where large quantities of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are used in both field and equipped facilities.  These are large scale industrial farms.
(2)Comprehensive agriculture: Chemicals are reduced to ~70% of intensive agriculture with legume crops and green manure supplements.
(3)Controlled agriculture: Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are not used on crops intended for human consumption but are allowed for silage and industrial crops like corn and sugarcane.  Pesticides are not used for vegetable and fruit production but fertilizers are allowed.
(4)Organic Farming: Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are not used but animal manure and urban sewage are allowed for use as fertilizers and soil conditioners.  Compost meeting NOP rules is allowed.
(5)Nature farming: All synthetic chemicals, animal manures and urban sewage are prohibited.  Compost fermented using plant organic materials are used to increase soil fertility and physical properties.

Organic farming and nature farming are truly sustainable farming practices with the least potential harm.  Nature farming is more restrictive in allowed practices as the potential for antibiotic and pharmaceutical products including hormones linked to animal waste is not accepted in nature farming practices.

AgrowTea and AgrowPulp are used in nature farming and may be used in organic farming with a level of safety exceeding organic farming practices.  Quality control protocols require both AgrowTea and AgrowPulp to test human pathogen free for coliforms including Salmonella and E. coli.  These products meet or exceed heavy metal limit requirements for class A compost.

I hope I’ve cleared up some of the common questions regarding organic farming and Bokashi.  And I hope the home gardeners and farmers take note.  It’s very easy to recover soil.  Stop using fertilizers and pesticides.  Let the microbes do the job for you.  Re-establish healthy soil cycling organic waste through a fermenter.  It’s less costly, a lot faster, and much better than composting at any scale.

What are you doing with your Food Waste?

If you’re still throwing all those food scraps into a garbage can…..it’s time to change. Do you buy plastic garbage bags and carry out a smelly heavy wet bag every week? Is your garbage can filling up too fast? Are you tired of the smelly messy can?

Maybe you’re a composter. Are you adding dairy and meat products to your compost pile? Does it work in the cold and wet weather? What do you do in the winter?

Bokashi fermenting works indoors and you’ll make far fewer trips outdoors into the wet or cold weather.

Nobody enjoys messing with organic waste. Food waste decomposes and putrefies so quickly. It’s messy, smelly, attracts rodents and insects. If you live near the forest or in certain areas where wildlife are abundant, you’ll attract them and find it expensive, difficult and a hassle keeping the animals away.

It’s not a lot of fun picking up the trash after an animal scatters it about. It’s a lot less fun to encounter animals in your backyard.

Maybe you live in a town or city where they want you to purchase an extra container for your organic waste. We all know how important it is to recycle waste and most of us know you can’t keep putting it into the landfill.

Start using a bokashi fermenter and you’ll see how easy it is to save money. You won’t be buying any more plastic trash bags. You won’t have to buy fertilizers for your garden. You’ll be able to keep your house plants healthy and vibrant all year around and you’ll no longer have to put up with flies and rodent problems.

https://www.bokashicycle.com/howitworks.html

Curbside Bins and Crocks – Don’t solve the problem

Portland recently started their food scrap recycling program which is similar to plans other cities hope their citizens will happily adopt.

http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Portland-residents-get-food-scrap-buckets-for-new-compost-program-132023353.html

Although this is the current trend and one likely to be forced upon many communities because most city managers are unaware that there are superior more efficient ways to handle the organic waste, I doubt the communities will happily adopt this way of handling organic waste.

Adding extra bins to the curbside collection is an unnecessary additional cost citizens will have to accept. It costs a lot to compost organic waste. Cities have to ship the material great distances to have it processed. Collecting the waste is also costly. Sadly, with this policy the rich nutrients in the organic waste are allowed to oxidize with a greater than 50% reduction in mass. Carbon ends up in the atmosphere instead of in the ground where it would do some good.

An Advanced Alternative Environmentally Friendly Method for Organic Waste Processing

A more efficient environmentally friendly solution is needed. We all agree that we can’t continue putting it into a landfill. Land is too precious and we want to avoid polluting our ground water and atmosphere.

One solution is to compost the organic waste. Another solution is to digest the waste in a methane producing plant (AD technologies). Composting takes a long time, requires a lot of effort and equipment, is not particularly efficient, and ties up land that could be used more efficiently in other ways. Composting sites are smelly and can’t be located where people live and work because they are unwelcome neighbors. Nobody wants a house or business next to a composting site.

AD methane producing plants are very expensive and hard to manage and ultimately toxic in the environment. They are not easy to scale up. Large operations are hard to manage and once in place require a guaranteed supply of waste for many years to cover the cost in building the plant. Maintenance costs are also high.

A third alternative, Bokashi (acidic anaerobic) fermentation is the simplest, least costly, and fastest way of recycling organic waste. It is an anaerobic process with specialized microbes and requires only 10 days to reach its end point and the bio-pulp obtained has a high market value.

Unlike the composting process and AD technologies which contribute significantly to greenhouse gas production, Bokashi fermenting virtually eliminates all greenhouse gases related to organic waste cycling. Virtually all of the carbon returns to the soil where it is sequestered.

Bokashi fermenting can be done all throughout the year, is very scalable, produces neither heat nor gases, and eliminates nuisance factors like odors and vermin linked to composting sites.

Most importantly, this technology can dramatically reduce the community’s dependence on petro derived products. The fermented bio-pulp when mixed with soil establishes healthy high organic content soil free of pathogens and no additional fertilizers are required.

Farm lands can thus be greatly improved and run more efficiently by cycling the bio-pulp through the soil. When waste is processed and recycled to the land, true sustainable agricultural practices are easily achieved. This cycling process conserves water too and the nutrients produced by bokashi fermenting are avidly fixed in the soil reducing ground water nutrient leaching which has been a difficult problem to resolve in the farming communities.

Table 1: Attribute Comparison for Composting Anaerobic Digestion and Bokashi Fermentation

It is important to more carefully examine the attributes related to methods used to recycle organic waste before any one method is adopted. These attributes are summarized in Table 1 above. Bokashi fermenting is by far the superior least toxic and most cost effective way to solve the organic waste problem.

Curbside diversion programs using bokashi fermenting in a residential setting are easy to implement. The home owner takes responsibility to process all organic waste in the home so none of the waste every gets to the curbside. Cities no longer have a need to pick up the organic waste saving labor and fuel and time.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/curb.html

Cities adopting a bokashi fermenting plant can process industrial/commercial organic waste easily in a small space and no longer have to ship the waste to a facility where much of the material will be oxidized in a composting operation.

https://www.bokashicycle.com/Indus.html

Organic waste should be processed locally where it is produced. Cycling the end product (bio-pulp) to the surrounding gardens, farms and parks is a positive welcome benefit. The soil organic content, so badly depleted over years of neglect can easily be restored resulting in truly sustainable practices.

Conserving water, cleaning up the soil, and reducing greenhouse gases in a cost efficient process that takes little effort and time makes a lot of sense. Bokashi fermenting is the only one of the 3 options that is easy to implement, costs little to put in place, cleans up the air and water and restores soil needed to grow products we consume free of chemicals and toxins.

Bokashi fermenting is the easy way to process all food scraps right at home. You need a few simple tools to do the job. Once you get started you’ll wonder why everyone doesn’t get involved. It’s just so simple.

http://www.parkseed.com/

Putting a lot of color and pattern in your garden is easier than you might imagine. Of course you need some good seeds or plants to get it started but the key to a healthy and vibrant garden has to do with the soil nutrients and microbial flora as much as it does with the seeds and plants you plan to admire.

Make Your Own High Organic Content Soil:

You don’t need commercial fertilizers or pesticides. What you need for healthy gardens is good soil. Make your own!

You can easily turn all the food scraps at home into a bio pulp using microbes that will then provide plenty of nutrients and organic matter for all of your plants. Bokashi fermenting your food scraps is the fastest most efficient way to generate good soil. And none of your food scraps will ever end up in a landfill or at the curbside.

The Bokashi advantages are immediate;

• Food scraps including dairy and meat diverted away from landfills
• Greenhouse gas reduction by processing waste at home
• It’s 10 x faster than composting without the work
• Can be done all year around
• Tea formed in fermenting is valuable nutrient to stimulate plants and improve soil
• Pulp formed adds organic content to soil
• Smelly waste is recycled in a manner that eliminates odors
• Insects and rodents or other animals avoid fermented organic waste

Minimize or Eliminate Dependence on Fertilizers and Pesticides:

Why waste your money on fertilizers and pesticides? They’re hazardous, noxious to work around, and they cost a lot. Food scraps are free and with little cost can be rapidly decomposed and fed to the soil microbes returning many nutrients, trace minerals, and organic content to the soil.

Commercial fertilizers and pesticides applied to the soil are going to select out microbes that can tolerate soils that are chemically treated. Many beneficial organisms will be destroyed when chemicals are mixed into the soil. The native microbes in the soil serve many purposes.

Soil microbes are intimately involved in feeding nutrients to your plants. You want lots of them around. Bokashi fermented food scraps will bring them back.

You’ve got to ferment the food scraps. It’s fast and it’s easy. The pickling process (fermenting) takes away the smell of rotting garbage and alters the surface chemistry so the soil microbes can then finish off the job….getting nutrients and microbes back into the soil. It’s really kind of miraculous.

You can convert all your organic waste into something great for the soil, get rid of your garbage can for food waste, save money on garbage bills and get a great garden.

Don’t be tempted to just bury your food scraps. That won’t work. You’ll end up with a smelly slimy mess in the ground with a lot of insects. Rats and other animals will also enjoy your mess. They won’t touch Bokashi fermented material. There’s no food value left for them because the microbes used in pickling the waste got it first. Even bears have no interest in Bokashi fermented scraps.

Breaking down Waste Material – It’s a hard job!

Did you ever wonder why it takes so long to compost organic material? Why don’t the carrots, beets, roots, potatoes, radishes, and plants bedded in the soil get eaten up by the soil microbes? Why don’t they just rot away?

After the plants die, they will slowly begin to rot. They have to break down the cells which are composed of a lot of cellulose. Cellulose is a complex sugar molecule that is the major structural material that makes the plant, fruit or vegetable firm. It’s the outer skin that keeps the bad guys out. It’s very tough material to breakdown.

Some microbes are able with enzymes to break it down quickly. Only certain types of microbes can produce these enzymes and they are the ones we use in the Bokashi fermenting process.

I like to think of the microbes involved in this process as the equivalent of chefs preparing a banquet for the hungry microbes in the soil. When you mix the fermented waste material with the soil, the soil microbes finish off the job leaving rich nutrients and minerals that can then be used to feed the plants.

The Soil Food Web – How it Works:

There is a kind of feeding frenzy that occurs when the material is mixed with soil. All kinds of critters get involved. All of the players at the table compete from the microscopic to the macro size including fungi, microbes, earthworms, centipedes, etc. Soil is alive and healthy when all the critters are competing and they all establish their populations and relationships. We have in essence a web of relationships established and the plants are an important part of the picture.

Bokashi Composting (Fermenting) – Rapidly Improves Soil:

Gardeners who want to have really healthy plants should appreciate that a lot of what makes a plant strong and healthy has to do with the quality of soil. If you feed the soil nutrients and microbes and support the soil web, you are going to have the best plants around. They will bloom more frequently and be far more vibrant.

Almost any soil will in short order with proper support of the food web transform to the best soil you can find for your plants.

It’s easy. Save your dollars and start thinking about those chemical additives you might have thought you needed to get your plants growing as potential toxins altering the food web. Bokashi Composting (Bokashi Fermenting) is a gardener’s dream.

You don’t have to do a lot of work to pickle your food waste or ferment your yard waste. It’s so much easier than composting. It’s fast. You will eliminate bad odors and get a richer soil when you mix the pickled waste with your garden soil.

Want to learn more? See how easy it is at www.bokashicycle.com

Photographs can show you the difference. Here are a few examples comparing plants with and without treatment.

Bokashi Tea Positively Impacts Ornamental Plants:

When you ferment your food scraps, you will obtain a liquid tea as the enzymes do their work on the waste material. The tea is usually collected when the spigot on the fermenter is opened every few days and it is very rich in nutrients and microbes.

Bokashi tea (AgrowTea™) can be applied directly to the soil or as a foliar spray. It is very potent and should be diluted 50 to 100 times with water before it is applied. You can apply it to vegetables, ornamental plants or even your grass.

Here is an example of how quickly plants respond to good treatments.

Identical potted plants were placed in the soil on the same slope with the same sun exposure and watered in like manner. Both clusters were watered using a spray attachment on the end of a standard garden hose.

The second cluster of plants had AgrowTea applied twice within the 4 weeks after planting at a dilution of 1:50 in a metered spray in place of only water.

Clusters that were treated with only water have far fewer buds and flowers and are less vibrant and lush in appearance.

Bokashi Treated Soil Positively Impacts Tomato Plants:

We’ve also looked at tomato plants grown in soil treated with Bokashi fermented food waste (AgrowPulp™) in comparison to plants grown in untreated soil. There is no doubt about the positive and improved outcomes in treated soil.

Identical plants were placed in the soil in separate greenhouses with the same sun exposure and watered in like manner.

AgrowPulp/Tea was applied at a rate of approximately 10 pounds per square foot in one greenhouse before tomato plants were placed in the soil. No AgrowPulp/Tea was added to the soil in the second greenhouse

Tomato plants in the greenhouse with soil treatment show tremendous vibrant growth and abundant fruit relative to tomato plants in the greenhouse where no soil treatment was done.

Bokashi Treated Grass – Beneficial Impact Limiting Turf grass Disease:

Dollar spot commonly appears in closely cut turf grass where there is high humidity and heat. Golf courses in the US spend millions of dollars each year on fungicides in an attempt to eradicate or control its spread. It is unsightly and difficult to control.

Two investigators at the USDA, Eric Ervin and Robert Kremer looked at bentgrass in greenhouse experiments to see if Bokashi microbes might effectively inhibit the fungus responsible for dollar spots, Sclerotinia homoeocarpa.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/aug01/turf0801.htm

In theory, if soil microbial populations are well established and competing, infectious opportunists like dollar spot will not so easily take hold.

Their findings show Bokashi microbes did significantly reduce infection rates. In control experiments with no Bokashi microbe treatment 19% of the turf grass pots seeded with Sclerotinia. In pots treated with Bokashi microbes less than 1% of the pots seeded with Sclerotinia were infected.

Your table scraps are precious! Don’t throw them away. Recycle them putting them back to soil. You’ll save money, get a better garden, and in the process will make the planet a better place.

A roadside farmer’s market in Bridgehampton, New York.

Just about every day I hear from people who have just discovered how easy it is to Bokashi ferment organic waste. Even though this method of rapidly converting all organic waste to useful nutrients to feed soil microbes and plants has been known for more than 50 years, people are discovering daily the process as if it just came to life.

Some of the comments are from farmers who know how important it is to have healthy soil for their crops and vegetables. Many are frustrated by the high price of fertilizers and pesticides and want to find a better way to efficiently and safely grow their produce. They want to switch from composting to Bokashi fermenting. When they get started on the process……..the comments are along the line…”I should have started Bokashi fermenting a long time ago instead of composting.”

A lot of home gardeners are surprised to discover you can digest all of your food scraps including meat and dairy right at home without attracting rats or other animals. The home gardeners really like using the Bokashi tea in the garden.

Others who get in touch just want to get rid of the food scraps and are thrilled to know you can save money by reducing the amount of waste thrown out and hauled away.

Many users find their garbage bill shrinks $10 to $15 a month because the size of the can and pick up schedule is much improved because they process all the food scraps right at home.

That’s a real savings of about $150 every year that can be better spent elsewhere. And it’s great to know the food scraps are doing good things for your home garden and soil.

It’s nice to know you can do your own part to reduce greenhouse gases right at home and build the best garden around so simply.

Bokashi Composting – how is it done?

It is so simple to ferment waste material. You need a good fermenter that excludes oxygen. You want to collect the tea (liquid forming) as the waste rapidly ferments.

Each day you add food scraps to the bottom of the fermenter. You then sprinkle the culture mix powder on the surface, enough to show a light dusting over the scraps each time scraps are added to the fermenter.

Close the fermenter to exclude oxygen and it’s going to ferment. Each day you open the fermenter and add another layer of waste and powder, re-seal and go about your ordinary business. The microbes in the culture mix do all the hard work.

Microbes release enzymes that quickly breakdown the larger molecules in the waste material releasing in the process many nutrients and liquids all of which are put to good use in the garden. It is done by excluding oxygen.

No methane is produced because the microbes generate acids as they breakdown the waste, Microbes that produce methane (methanogens) can’t survive when the pH drops below 6.0. The process involves “pickling” the waste material and it only takes about 1 week to reach an end point.

It is a fermentation process with specialized microbes. It’s 10 times faster than traditional composting. You can process virtually any kind of organic material and in the process you end up with virtually 99% of the nutrients returning to the soil.

Greenhouse gases are eliminated in this process in contrast to composting where typically 50% of the organic material is by oxidation released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Did you ever notice the putrid rotten egg smell around your compost pile? When you ferment your waste using Bokashi culture mix, the smell is more like vinegar.

The Bokashi process is a fast and very easy way to eliminate odors, vermin and flies. It must be done anaerobically (without oxygen).

You can do Bokashi ferment food scraps year around very efficiently. You don’t have to do any turning and you end up with soil that is so much richer in nutrients and microbes compared to composting by mixing the fermented waste material with soil in the garden. Plants love it.

You can ferment yard waste, animal waste, and all your food scraps using the same microbes. Here is a reference with a brief description of how it works.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/howitworks.html

Feeding Your Soil Micro-Flora:

When you recycle your food scraps back to soil you are doing a lot more than just returning nutrients to the soil. You are feeding starving critters in the soil. Healthy soil is very much alive.

There are millions and millions of organisms found in every teaspoon of soil struggling and competing to survive. They feed on dead debris and other materials that show up in the soil. They metabolize (breakdown) materials and release nutrients that are then processed by other microbes or plants. Nothing is wasted.

Think of the fermented waste as if it is a fresh banquet prepared for your soil microbial citizens. When you feed the community (soil critters) good food, they multiply. They interact with all the other critters in the soil and feed your plants nutrients. All get stronger and healthier.

Some critters feed on other organisms and they are themselves targets to be devoured or metabolized by other predators when they become too numerous.

In a healthy environment no single organisms becomes completely dominant. A community evolves that is quite diverse and well populated with checks and balances to maintain its diversity in a very natural way.

So you’re delivering nutrients and microbes to the soil. That’s why plants do so well when they grow in soil treated with bokashi products. Microbes are as important as nutrients and are helping the plants too!

If you want to know a little more about this process and how the food web works you can check out our blog on bokashi fermenting and the food web.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/?p=266

Bokashi Composting (Fermenting) – Rapidly Improves Soil

Gardeners who want to have really healthy plants should appreciate that a lot of what makes a plant strong and healthy has to do with the quality of soil. If you feed the soil nutrients and microbes and support the soil web, you are going to have the best plants around. They will bloom more frequently and be far more vibrant.

Almost any soil will in short order with proper support of the food web transform to the best soil you can find for your plants.

It’s easy. Save your dollars and start thinking about those chemical additives you might have thought you needed to get your plants growing as potential toxins altering the food web. Bokashi Composting (Bokashi Fermenting) is a gardener’s dream.

You don’t have to do a lot of work to pickle your food waste or ferment your yard waste. It’s so much easier than composting. It’s fast. You will eliminate bad odors and get a richer soil when you mix the pickled waste with your garden soil.

Want to learn more? See how easy it is at www.bokashicycle.com

]]> http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/bokashi-composting-%e2%80%93-making-great-soil-and-plants/feed/ 0 http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/bokashi-waste-management-urban-and-municipal-planning/ http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/bokashi-waste-management-urban-and-municipal-planning/#comments Thu, 14 Apr 2011 03:32:23 +0000 admin0 http://www.bokashicycle.com/blog/?p=279

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Machu_Picchu,_Peru.jpg

Machu Picchu, the beautiful Incan city that escaped destruction, shrouded in mystery and still incompletely understood reveals organization and planning we can’t help but admire. The urban center and agricultural centers were linked. As to why the Incas chose this site to build their city is a mystery.

For those of you interested in reading more about Machu Picchu, much has been written and you may find this reference interesting. http://www.incatrail-peru.com/inka-trail/en/machu-picchu-history.php

Many theories have been advanced to explain the site and it is clear that the agricultural sector is too small to have supported any larger scale production. Some have speculated the site was even used as a kind of agricultural testing site.

We know Incas were also interested in fermenting and used special pottery, aryballi pottery to hold fermented corn. I can’t help but wonder what they did with the fermented waste.

Today I want to talk more about urban and municipal waste management and the advantages of fermenting all organic waste. And more to the point I want urban planners and waste management people to understand that we can handle our waste far more efficiently with real benefits today by bokashi fermenting! Anaerobic methane producing plants are too expensive and polluting. Composting is too slow and wasteful.

Fermenting waste is by far the fastest, cleanest (non-polluting), and least costly way of getting rid of organic waste. And it’s great for restoring and enriching soil.

Who are the Urban Planners and Handlers for Waste Management?

We are all planners and participants in this process. As individuals who generate a lot of organic waste each day, we are a part of the stream of waste producers. We can generate a lot of waste or plan our activities to minimize the amount of waste we generate. We will never eliminate all the waste. The organic waste can be far better managed.

If the individual wraps the waste in plastic and puts it in a container destined for the landfill, it’s a bad plan. Most of us know that is a bad choice and cities are moving to discourage this activity. Many city managers are recommending curb side organic waste “recycling” programs. They want you to put the waste in special containers for curb side pickup.

The curb side pickup programs are not so popular with consumers. Who wants the smelly garbage, vermin, insects and a mess on the street?

City planners are also challenged. It’s an additional expense to divert that waste away from the landfill. They have to hire more drivers, buy more equipment, have waste hauled miles to composting sites and pay the dumping fee for processing the waste. The consumer will get the tab.

Robert Lange, the Director New York’s bureau of waste management recently reported on their 5 year unsuccessful food scrap collection program (Vancouver Sun Mar 11, 2011- page 2), and studies revealed how expensive the programs are for the city to support. http://docs.nrdc.org/cities/files/cit_08052801A.pdf

Incas appear to have been well connected to nature and they certainly knew a lot about building, wasting little and getting the most out of the space they occupied. We could take a few pointers from the past. We know how to do it better.

Recycling Organic Waste:

Recycling of organic waste is an important and essential strategy that all municipalities and districts will increasingly mandate. Generally speaking it is advocated to divert waste from the landfill. Secondary considerations have to do with attempts to recover value from waste that would have otherwise been buried.

There are two commonly advocated technologies used to recycle organic waste involving either composting or methane generation by means of anaerobic digesters. Anaerobic digesters are exceptionally expensive and complex and they are unproven in large scale operations. Composting is also costly and slow and both approaches are seldom welcomed by communities because of the noxious odors, concerns about safety, and scale up costs and long term sustainability.

The alternative technology that involves acidic anaerobic (Bokashi) fermenting is well known and practiced in many parts of the world. It is efficient, rapid, non-polluting, and very inexpensive. The chart below provides at a glance comparative attributes for the 3 methods used to handle and recycle organic waste.

Bokashi: Fermenting Technology

Some people call the process of fermenting composting organic waste. “Bokashi Composting” is really a misnomer. Composting involves oxidation. Bokashi fermenting excludes oxygen.

“Bokashi Composting” as it is sometimes described is more properly and technically described as the opposite of composting….it’s a fermenting process. No methane or other gases form in the process because the microbes involved create conditions that make it impossible for the methanogens (microbes involved in methane production) to function.

It is a fermentation process with specialized microbes. It’s 10 times faster than traditional composting. You can process virtually any kind of organic material and in the process you end up with virtually 99% of the nutrients returning to the soil.

The Bokashi process is a fast and very easy way to eliminate odors, vermin and flies. You can do it all year around very efficiently. You don’t have to do any turning and you end up with soil that is so much richer in nutrients and microbes compared to composting. Plants love it.

You can ferment yard waste, animal waste, and all your food scraps using the same microbes. Here is a reference with a brief description of how it works.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/howitworks.html

How to manage Organic Waste: Keep it off the curb!

It’s easy…..no work at all. Individuals can make the simple choice to bokashi ferment all of their organic waste at home. Those who choose to get involved will be able to use the fermented waste material in the garden, and will no longer want to purchase fertilizers further reducing dependence on oil derived products.

City planners and waste management leaders should consider providing to their residential customers bokashi fermenting systems. Each resident participating in the program will no longer have any organic waste to place at the curb side. The city saves a lot of money because fewer truck pickup services and laborers to fetch the curb side waste are needed. They also save on tipping fees because a lot less organic waste is being shipped out.

Every resident participating in the program saves the city a lot of money and time. Curb side waste never materializes. Approximately 30% of the organic waste is produced right at home. In many urban centers it climbs to as much as 50% of the waste. Diverting organic waste away from the curb is an immediate benefit with savings and that is a success story.

Some city dwellers have no access to gardens or soil and are unable to use the fermented organic waste locally. City planners should provide a pickup service. In other countries programs are in place with fermented organic waste pickup service carrying the product to area farms where the farmers use it to improve the soil.

Maybe you are concerned about potential pathogens. The good news is that fermenting is very efficient at killing pathogens that potentially harm humans or pets.

Industrial Waste: Convert Organic Waste to Soil Amending Agents

We now know how to rapidly in 10 days with a shredding and inoculating single step start the process of fermenting that is going to transform all organic waste into soil amending agents.

In this scalable industrial process the organic waste is first converted into a bio-pulp using bokashi culture media. By a patented process the bio-pulp is then transformed into a pathogen free cake and tea, the soil amending agents that are marketable for home, nursery, landscaping or agricultural uses. In this process all of the organic waste processed is recovered without any waste. Very little energy is involved in running this operation. The entire operation can be done under a single roof and none of the organic waste once shredded and inoculated ever comes in contact with the ground. We call the “cake” (dewatered biopulp) AgrowPulp™ which can be mixed with virtually any soil to rapidly improve the organic content, nutrients, and microbes.

Photo of AgrowPulp™ – acquired 10 days after raw food waste fermented. No soil has been added to the cake.

In this operation even at a commercial industrial scale the process is appealing because garbage odors are eliminated, rodents and vermin are not attracted to fermented material, and no gases are being produced to heat up the atmosphere. It is a clean efficient way of getting soil amending products with high nutrient value from our organic waste. Waste is truly our treasure.

In summary, bokashi fermenting organic waste is a sustainable low cost alternative to composting or anaerobic methane production. It is much faster. It is the least costly method of dealing with organic waste. And the products obtained when put back into the soil result in a restoration of microbial diversity, organic content, and nutrients that will lead to healthy soil and plants.

Urban planners save money by encouraging citizens to get involved. Individuals participating keep the waste out of city hands which is a real time and money saver for the city.

Bokashi fermenting can be used at any scale and on an industrial level it is also a time, labor, and equipment saver.

Winter by Hendrick Avercamp, early 17th century.

We are once again in the dead of winter, a wonderful time to gather thoughts and contemplate the arrival of spring and summer.

A lot of gardeners are probably already planning for next year’s garden and I suspect many have also piled a lot of organic debris from this year’s activity hoping it will degrade or transform into compost by this next spring.

When it is cold and wet the composter is just not going to do the job. You’ve got to turn it, aerate the pile, heat it adequately, sustain the proper carbon to nitrogen ratio, and have a sufficiently large pile of debris to make it efficient.

It’s a lot of work and as many of you know, more than 50% of your organic content goes up in the air if you do get it working. It’s a highly polluting process and you end up with a soil amendment that is certainly valued by many gardeners but it is in fact missing a lot of vital nutrients and does nothing to improve the microbial numbers. All that heating and processing was very damaging to naturally occurring microbes and they don’t survive the long composting cycle.

Bokashi Composting:

A lot of gardeners have never heard of Bokashi. Before we get too far into the discussion, I want to make it clear right away that “Bokashi Composting” is really a misnomer. Composting involves oxidation. Bokashi Composting as it is commonly known is more properly and technically described as the opposite of composting….it’s a fermenting process.

Microbes release enzymes that quickly breakdown the larger molecules in the waste material releasing in the process many nutrients and liquids all of which are put to good use in the garden. It is done by excluding oxygen. No methane is produced because the microbes generate acids as they breakdown the waste, Microbes that produce methane can’t function under those conditions and no methane is ever produced in a Bokashi fermenting system.

It is a fermentation process with specialized microbes. It’s 10 times faster than traditional composting. You can process virtually any kind of organic material and in the process you end up with virtually 99% of the nutrients returning to the soil.

Greenhouse gases are eliminated in this process in contrast to composting where typically 50% of the organic material is by oxidation released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide, ammonia and hydrogen sulfide. Did you ever notice the putrid rotten egg smell around your compost pile?

The Bokashi process is a fast and very easy way to eliminate odors, vermin and flies. It is done anaerobically (without oxygen). You can do it all year around very efficiently. You don’t have to do any turning and you end up with soil that is so much richer in nutrients and microbes compared to composting. Plants love it.

You can ferment yard waste, animal waste, and all your food scraps using the same microbes. Here is a reference with a brief description of how it works.

It is so easy to ferment your food scraps. And it’s a good feeling to know that in the process you save money on your garbage bill, get rich soil in return, and feed your plants natural nutrients. No more smelly garbage, fruit flies, rats or vermin to contend with. But you’ve got to put the fermented material back in the ground soil. You’re going to feed the soil web!

Bokashi fermenting involves mixing the food scraps with a microbial culture mix in a specialized fermenter that excludes oxygen. The microbes are active when the oxygen levels are brought to very low levels where other microbes perish. The microbes release enzymes (chemicals) that breakdown food waste to a form that is then easily metabolized by soil microbes. It is a two step process.

Bokashi Composting (Fermenting) is a pickling process. The food scraps are first pickled in a specialized fermenter, and then the fermented product is put it in the ground.

You don’t have to take the garbage out in the cold and rainy weather and you won’t have to empty your fermenter for weeks with a proper fermenting device……………but eventually, depending on how much waste you generate you are going to make that trip to the garden (or planter box) to bury the fermented product to feed your hungry soil microbes.

What do you do when the ground is frozen? That’s a good question. And you might also wonder how cold weather affects the rate of fermented food waste material being broken down in the soil by those hungry microbes. Does it take longer? Can you save the fermented waste material until the ground is thawed out and then bury it?

If the weather is cold, and the ground is frozen, most people just dump the batch of fermented food scraps into a large container outside with a lid. It is perfectly okay to let it freeze too. You can fill a container or two all winter if you like and await the spring thaw. If you’ve got a shovel of soil to toss in with the “pickled” waste material, do it. That will get things going even faster.

When the ground is once again soft, work the fermented product into the soil and you will observe the soil microbes rapidly metabolize all of the wasted material in short order. All of the nutrients go right to the soil. Your vegetable garden will be great……..and nothing was lost in waiting out the winter.

If you have properly fermented the food waste you will have no smelly garbage in the outside container. Animals will not bother it. We have lots of clients in Eastern Canada, Upstate New York, the Midwestern US and Alaska who experience long winters. They know it’s easy even in the winter to process food waste.

Although it is difficult to accurately measure how fast the fermented material is metabolized in the soil because many different kinds of food scraps may be processed, one easy way to gauge the activity is to filter the soil at various intervals after the fermented food scraps are mixed with soil to see how long it takes for recognizable material to disappear. In the summer virtually all material (except pits and bones- see below) will be gone in about 7 – 10 days.

In the middle of winter buried in frozen ground the same material will take 20 – 30 days to disappear. Even though it appears that the rate of metabolism is reduced when the weather is cold, the overall assimilation in the soil is quite rapid.

Breaking down Waste Material – It’s a hard job!

Did you ever wonder why it takes so long to compost organic material? Here’s another question. Why don’t the carrots, beets, roots, potatoes, radishes, and plants bedded in the soil get eaten up by the soil microbes? Why don’t they just rot away?

The answer to the first question has to do with the structure of most of the organic waste we encounter. It’s made up of a polymer called cellulose. Cellulose is a complex sugar molecule that is a major component of plant cellular material. It’s the outer skin that keeps the bad guys out. It’s very tough material to breakdown.

Microbes are able to break it down with enzymes, specialized molecules designed to attack certain key parts of the polymer which then make the polymer fall apart but they can’t do it when the plant is alive and healthy.

The microbes don’t seem to get it going efficiently in the soil unless the organic waste has been processed in a manner that makes it possible for soil microbes to do their work. We’ll come back to this point in a few moments.

The enzyme activity is akin to pulling a loose thread from your favorite garment and then watching the unraveling before your eyes. Don’t pull those loose threads! So the living healthy plants do something to trick or evade those hungry microbes. That’s a real mystery. How do they do it?

So it’s very interesting that vegetable matter and plants in general are able to live in the soil in contact with all kinds of microbes without injury. Indeed they are able to feed the microbes sugars in exchange for nutrients and thrive. If the soil microbes could only figure out how to unzip the plants to get at their sugars and nutrients, the plants would be devoured in a flash.

The Soil Food Web – How it Works

Soil scientists are struggling to understand how it all works. We know very little about the soil despite the many years and efforts directed at unraveling the cycle.

You will note in this simplified scheme there are a lot of missing critters like centipedes, springtails, beetles, etc. but the idea of a complex web of competing organisms from simple to complex is well depicted.

Energy from the sun is stored in plants. The plants by photosynthesis build complex molecules that eventually end up in the soil when the plant dies. The organic matter in the soil is then broken down by critters in the soil.

The soil microbes derive energy from those molecules in the soil and expand in numbers. There are many different types of microbes the majority of which we have yet to identify.

Fungi and other organisms also feast on the organic matter and there are critters that feed on the microbes and fungi. There are fungi seeking nematodes (worms) and bacterial seeking worms, protozoa, arthropod (shredders), etc. all competing aggressively. You eat and multiply or perish.

Fungi produce antibiotics to inhibit bacteria so they can get a leg up and they in turn are eaten by predators. You can appreciate that in short order, depending on how things go, a pattern of critters will emerge with checks and balances.

If you add fertilizers or pesticides to the soil, certain critters will be killed and other critters (predators feasting on the killed microbes, fungi, etc.) will be in turn effected. The predator population will be altered, and this change ripples throughout the food web. Populations established can dramatically change. The soil is living and ideally very much alive.

When you feed the soil traditional sterile “compost” it doesn’t really do a lot of good. It’s pretty devoid of microbes and many nutrients are also missing.

When you Bokashi ferment, the soil microbes in the Bokashi Culture Mix are able to rapidly release nutrients from the food waste or organic material fermented. When that “pickled” waste is then mixed with the soil it is as if you prepared a banquet for the microbes, fungi, nematodes, arthropods, etc. By first fermenting and then mixing the fermented product with the soil a lot of good occurs.

Nutrients and microbes, fungi, and many other soil critters get to work expanding and re-establishing a dynamic active soil. Plants through their roots participate in the process too absorbing numerous small molecules they need for health and growth.

Bokashi Composting (Fermenting) – Rapidly Improves Soil

Gardeners who want to have really healthy plants should appreciate that a lot of what makes a plant strong and healthy has to do with the quality of soil. If you feed the soil nutrients and microbes and support the soil web, you are going to have the best plants around. They will bloom more frequently and be far more vibrant.

Almost any soil will in short order with proper support of the food web transform to the best soil you can find for your plants.

It’s easy. Save your dollars and start thinking about those chemical additives you might have thought you needed to get your plants growing as potential toxins altering the food web. Bokashi Composting (Bokashi Fermenting) is a gardener’s dream.

You don’t have to do a lot of work to pickle your food waste or ferment your yard waste. It’s so much easier than composting. It’s fast. You will eliminate bad odors and get a richer soil when you mix the pickled waste with your garden soil.

Want to learn more? See how easy it is at www.bokashicycle.com.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red-knobbed.starfish.arp.jpg

Waste Disposal and Water Quality?

You can’t help but be impressed by the beauty and abundance of water on our planet. And we know we’ve got to keep it clean and protected if we are going to stay healthy. We previously talked about water conserving linked to Bokashi fermenting.

Bokashi – Dig it! 10 Reasons to get started

Most of you who are currently involved in Bokashi fermenting….disposing of food waste and scraps by fermenting with microbes to enrich your soil probably don’t realize you are not only improving the soil but improving the water quality in your area too.

Bokashi fermenting involves adding a sprinkle of culture mix of microbes embedded in wheat bran or rice bran in layers over your accumulating organic waste. The mix of food scraps and microbes in a fermenting system will rapidly break down to form “bokashi tea”, the liquid released by enzymes in the fermenting of waste, and the “pickled” waste.

The pickled waste is then mixed with soil to feed the soil microbes. The end result is the powerfully enriched soil, an empty garbage can, a great garden, and no foul smelling insect ridden mess to handle. And as many of you know from personal experience, it is easy and fast. We’ve posted videos for those of you who are not so familiar with this simple way of getting rid of your garbage.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/videos.html

A number of metabolites (small molecules) are formed in the fermenting process. It turns out that these small molecules are highly toxic to a number of pathogens that are commonly associated with food scraps like E. coli, Salmonella, and others that invariably show up if the wasted scraps are allowed to putrefy or decompose as happens in your garbage can.

Those small molecules (metabolites formed in the fermenting process) are rapidly eaten up by soil microbes once the fermented product or tea gets to the soil. The soil microbes feast on the fermented waste in the final process of waste disposal, leaving soil rich in nutrients and microbes that feed your plants.

Earthworms, springtails, and many other soil creatures all participate. Once you re-establish a healthy soil free of toxins and rich in nutrients and microbes, you can expect to see healthy plants blooming and growing without the dependence on pesticides and fertilizers.

We know from experience that the water in a landfill is heavily contaminated. Many pathogens travel in the water and end up in our lakes, rivers, and oceans. Garbage sitting in a can will harbor and support pathogens and all along the way from curbside to the landfill you can expect fluids end up on the street and in the storm drains and ultimately carry pathogens to the ground water table, rivers, lakes, and oceans.

There is nothing unexpected here, and even though it is difficult to quantify the impact Bokashi fermenting has on reducing ground water contamination in the food waste stream, it is certainly true that individuals who are fermenting their food scraps are joining pools of others who are diminishing the spread of pathogens.

I like the idea that it is so simple to get rid of food scraps and organic waste by Bokashi fermenting. I like the fact that I have reduced the amount of carbon dioxide and other noxious gases going into the atmosphere by fermenting. I like my healthy garden and soil. And I’m happy to know I’ve not contributed to a ground water problem.

If you are still sending your garbage to the landfill or trying to compost those food scraps, you are certainly adding to the pathogens that end up in the ground water.

Pet Waste is a major ground water contaminator!

Animal waste has been more carefully analyzed and we can certainly all recall outbreaks of E. coli where people were seriously injured. Although dairy farms, cattle ranchers, and pig farms are all dealing with the problem of disposing of animal waste, there is a source of waste a lot closer at home we should note.

Cat litter, dog poop, and pet waste in general are an important source of material that results in a lot of water fouling right at home. Where do you put it?

Pet owners are frustrated because they are told what they shouldn’t do but seldom given good advice on what to do! Part of the problem might be because until recently, no one could tell them how to do it better.

Obviously you don’t want to keep sending the waste to the landfill. In a landfill that waste will invariably result in ground water contamination, will result in a lot of methane gas generation, and usually is accompanied by plastic bags that we don’t want in the land fill either.

If you just bury the waste, it will allow the water passing through the soil to carry pathogens to the water table where it has to be cleared out before we can use that water safely in our drinking supply.

The only safe way to dispose of pet waste responsibly is to destroy the pathogens before they can get to the ground water.

Bokashi Food Waste and Pet Poop Disposal – Chemical Analysis and Biology

We have shown that this can be done using the same bokashi culture mix microbes used for food waste disposal, in a fermenting system with an accelerant. The accelerant is needed to get the microbes working properly because the pet waste is chemically devoid of certain nutrients the microbes require to get a quick start at fermenting. The cat or dog absorbed those nutrients when they digested their food.

Why don’t we just flush the Pet Waste?

Some of you may wonder why we don’t recommend just flushing the waste down the toilet. If it works for human waste, isn’t it going to work for pet waste? No it won’t!

Most cities are struggling already trying to keep the sewer systems working properly to handle all of the waste properly. When we have large storms or sudden demands on the system we experience breakdowns. It’s an expensive process handling and decontaminating polluted water.

If you consider the number of pets in an urban center and calculate the mass of additional waste that would go into the sewer system should all the owners put the pet waste into the system, it would overwhelm most if not all current systems. In El Cajon, CA there are about 100,000 inhabitants and 10,000 dogs. This results in about 5,000 pounds of dog poop being generated each day.

http://www.ci.el-cajon.ca.us/content/forms/Pet%20Clean-Up.pdf

The volume of cat contaminated litter and dog poop generated in a typical urban center on a daily basis is very large and a growing concern for city planners.

Ironically you will see in the advice depending on the county or state frequently the suggestion that it is okay to flush the waste. I’m here to tell you NO…not a good idea at all.

Sea Otters and Cat Feces an Unhealthy Combination for the Otters

Fanny Syufy, cited in her news report that researchers have discovered a correlation between Toxoplasma gondii and the decrease in the sea otter population off the California Coast. Since cats are the only creatures that shed the T. gondii parasite, through their feces, there seems to be a direct link.

http://cats.about.com/cs/parasiticdisease/a/seaotters.htm

Sea otters that had been once placed on the likely to perish to extinction list earlier were making a healthy recovery off the California coast. That recovery has been checked and flattened possibly because of the number of people with cats who dispose of the waste in the toilet. Although other causes are also suspect, researchers from UC Davis, in a study of otters who habitated areas near freshwater runoff, found that 42% of live otters and 62% of dead otters tested positive for T gondii.

The USDA has also found in a survey of marine creatures that many are apparently infected with pathogens commonly found in pet and animal waste.

http://www.otterproject.org/atf/cf/%7B1032ABCB-19F9-4CB6-8364-2F74F73B3013%7D/bio%20pathogens%20in%20marine%20mammals.pdf

Keep it Clean!

It’s really very simple. Authorities are struggling to give you advice. They don’t really have a lot of good choices. Nobody wants you to put your waste in the landfill. We are running out of space. Most municipalities and authorities know of only two options. You either landfill or compost.

We know bokashi fermenting is a far superior way of getting organic waste back to the soil where it can do some good. It’s 10 times faster than composting, conserves water, gets rid of the smell and eliminates the greenhouse gas problem.

What are you going to do with pet waste, dog poop and cat litter. That’s a real challenge. The advice given is inconsistent from one local to the next and seems to depend on who wrote up the advice to the public. Bury it, flush it, or landfill dispose of it?

Most of the advice is against the landfill option but many authorities are currently turning a blind eye to “small” deposits in the garbage can. Some authorities suggest burial but we know that certainly leads to ground water contamination. Everyone is against leaving it on the surface because that is the most efficient way to get pathogens into the storm sewer and it will contaminate marine life or ground water tables.

You can’t compost pet waste efficiently.

The best solution…same as with food waste. You should Bokashi ferment it, get the nutrients back to the soil for your ornamental garden, and get rid of the pathogens before they get into the soil.

http://www.bokashicycle.com/petcycle.html

http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weedflower.JPG

We’ve been talking a lot about all kinds of things related to bokashi.  In our last blog we spoke of Diogenes (the Dog) and summarized in our view how being uninformed or applying science inappropriately results in very devastating results  (Prairie Dog Science….Curbside Food Waste, Kitchen Scraps, Green Cones, Composting & Heavy Metals!).  I couldn’t help but note the beauty in the tiny  Dog violet (Viola conspersa),  which is considered a common weed.  This touches again on that interesting and peculiar way we try to tidy up in our minds how the world should be characterized.  I wanted to know how people go about defining a weed.  So here is the Wikipedia explanation.

A weed is a plant that someone thinks is bad, because it is growing in the wrong place. Trees are not often called weeds, only smaller plants.

Someone may grow a plant because it has beautiful flowers, but other people may think that this plant is a weed for some reason. This may be for one of these reasons:

• it has pollen that makes them sneeze,
• it spreads seeds which will grow quickly,
• the roots go too far under the ground and can cause damage to houses or pipes,
• the roots spread quickly,
• the plant has poisonous berries,
• the plant has liquid (sap) in it which can hurt a person’s skin,

If someone is farming a plant and it then moves outside the farm, the plant may then be called a weed.

Some plants are very hard to stop once they start growing. These are called invasive weeds.

Weed is also a name for any wild plant, one that people do not use for anything.

Speaking of a tidy up world………it is clearly evident more and more people are being told they have to change the way they manage their food waste.  Are they being given the best advice?

San Francisco will fine Food Waste Violators…

According to the San Francisco chronicle, residents in and around San Francisco are being told they have to make a change in the way they handle their food waste.

San Francisco Chronicle

The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to approve Mayor Gavin Newsom’s proposal for the most comprehensive mandatory composting and recycling law in the country. It’s an aggressive push to cut greenhouse gas emissions and have the city sending nothing to landfills or incinerators by 2020.

“San Francisco has the best recycling and composting programs in the nation,” Newsom said, praising the board’s vote on a plan that some residents had decried as heavy-handed and impractical. “We can build on our success.”

This is a little like the weed problem…….by whose definition is it the best recycling and composting program in the nation?

They are correct that something has to be done about reducing greenhouse gases and food waste going to a landfill is not good.  The policy is heavy handed and probably impractical too.  The irony is that no one has shown in the analysis that the volume of greenhouse gas produced by composting is truly less than that which would be produced in a landfill.  Although it is true that a lot of methane is produced in the landfill which is far more heat producing than carbon dioxide, it is not clear that all of the food waste in a landfill is oxidized or methane converted.

We know that in composting on an industrial scale all of the food waste is set to be oxidized as efficiently as can be managed.  It is quite possible the total amount of carbon dioxide produced with industrial composting exceeds that which would have been produced in a landfill.  I’m not advocating putting food waste into landfills……..just pointing out that we are once again making assumptions without true measurements.

But lets be clear…….there is a superior alternative that was not even considered.  Bokashi fermentation is far easier and more efficient.  Every resident could side step the problem and the city planners would be happy.  With bokashi fermentation the food waste is put to better use and the greenhouse gas problem related to residential food waste goes immediately to zero.

As we’ve demonstrated in experiments and practice, when the food waste is processed in a fermenter where all the oxygen is excluded under acidic conditions with specialized microbes, a pickled food waste is acquired within a very short time ( about 1 week).

That pickled food waste is then placed in the ground where soil microbes take over.  They rapidly metabolize the pickled food waste converting it to a soil rich in nutrients and microbes that are beneficial for your plants.  By fermenting (pickling) your food waste you diverted it from the garbage cans or bins (no possible fines folks) putting it to good use.

What are the benefits?  No smelly food waste, no vermin, rats or insects.  The immediate elimination of greenhouse gases because none of the food waste is being oxidized.  It is 10 times faster than composting.  Now you get a credit back on waste hauling because you reduce your can size and schedule for pick up.  No turning or working a pile.  No petro fuel is needed to run the equipment and machinery involved in composting.  Now there is an alternative!

I want to commend those who see the need to change our ways.  But I hope they will expand their knowledge and become better informed about how we can do it better.  There are great and simple solutions to this food waste problem.

Myths and tips…

I’d like to touch on a few myths and give a few tips to those who are discovering how easy it is to bokashi ferment their food waste.

Almost everyone now understands that we’ve got to get away from landfills.  The food waste problem will never go away.  It’s going to get a lot worse.  Diverting to composting seems to some people a logical solution.  It might be even more attractive if we were all vegetarians.  But we aren’t and a lot of the food waste now being diverted to composting sites will putrefy.

Sites are smelly.  Rats and vermin are always attracted to these sites.  A lot of land is wasted because it must be dedicated to the process and that land is essentially a toxic dumping place.  You don’t want a composting site to be near your house.  Are these sites safe and non-hazardous?  They are polluting on a massive scale………so the idea that they are good because they produce compost for our gardens and parks is pretty silly.

The oceans are now being acidified.  Carbon dioxide is absorbed into the ocean forming carbonic acid and this subtle but increasing level of acid (lowering of the ocean pH) profoundly changes the ocean environment.  Coral reefs and sea life in general will be subject to impacts that are destructive and most probably not going to make the world a better place. Global Scientists Draw Attention To Threat Of Ocean Acidification

One of the world’s largest compost facilities was established in the state of Washington near the city of Everett which abuts the large body of water directly communicating with the ocean waters just off the state coast.  I can’t help but wonder if part of the explanation for the recent findings just off the coast for large changes in ocean acidification are related to the massive (tons) of carbon dioxide being produced at this site adjacent to all that salt water in the straights of Juan de Fuca. Oysters in deep trouble « Ocean acidification

It is frequently suggested that composting is good because it “sterilizes” a pile killing microbes.  We touched on this topic as well in our earlier blogs (Prairie Dog Science….Curbside Food Waste, Kitchen Scraps, Green Cones, Composting & Heavy Metals!)  It is very probable with the increased food waste entering into the compost feed stock pathogens will propagate and spread in the pile.  E. coli and Salmonella can do very well in a warm, moist and dark environment.  You may pasteurize but you certainly can not expect to kill these microbes at the non-sustained high temperatures insufficient for true sterilization that is characterized by composting.

When you bokashi ferment food waste, the pathogens even if present can not propagate or survive because the media is acidic and anaerobic.  Pickling food makes it safe because microbes that harm us can’t survive those processes and can’t grow in the acidic media.

Composters like to say it is a natural process.  It is not.  It is a man made process and I would ask anyone who believe otherwise to show us the evidence where this occurs naturally in nature.  We’ve addressed this issue many times (The Naked Truth About Compost).

Some people suggest that bokashi fermentation, because it is anaerobic probably produces methane too just like a landfill so it can’t be good.  This is false reasoning based on misinformation.  Bokashi fermentation occurs anaerobically (oxygen is excluded)…..that is true.  But the conditions are hugely different from the anaerobic process resulting in methane production.  Methane is produced by organisms called methanogens and these can only function at neutral pH.  In the acidic environment no methanogens can survive and they are never seen.  Actual measurements prove no methane is produced.

A few tips…..

Remember you can put anything organic including meat, bones, egg shells, or even paper in your fermenter to pickle and then feed the soil.  Crush your egg shells when you put them in the fermenter to make it mechanically easier to pickle.

Napkins and light paper waste materials should be wetted with water and then spread out in the fermenter like a leaf to make it easier and faster to pickle.

Corn cobs are larger items should be cut into pieces to make it process more efficiently.  It will still ultimately be metabolized by the soil microbes but you speed the process by getting if fully fermented before it goes into the soil.

Many paper plates are coated with a thin film of plastic and this will interfere with the pickling process.  Some papers have a lot of clay imbedded making it hard for the enzymes to attack the cellulose.  Soak them in water first and do some small experiments to prove they are properly being processed if you want to metabolize these paper items.  Keep in mind that certain inks have metals that would accumulate in the soil so try to minimize that problem.

Finally, I often hear people who live in high rise buildings are flats without a backyard the complaint that they can’t ferment their food waste.  You’ve got to be creative….think about your friends and neighbors.  You might be surprised at the possibilities.  Take a look at this balcony and tell me you are not impressed. (What to do with your Bokashi when you live in a flat).

I’ve been doing a lot of work to prove that we could just as easily bokashi ferment our yard waste.  Why not keep that green nitrogen rich waste on our land and put it back to good use.  It takes only 1 week to ferment all of the grass clippings and weeds.  We’ll talk more about this in the future.  But I’m going to save any dog violets should I be lucky enough to find one!

Diogenes would be right at home…even in today’s world.

How would you like to get rid of bad smells and stop the pests that go after your garbage (rats, dogs, flies and cockroaches) …and quit paying the city so much to hall the stuff away………and feel good about what you are doing for your planet?  You can put a little money in your pocket too!  It’s easy and kind of fun……..once you realize how easy it is.

You can learn a lot about bokashi fermentation if you haven’t already discovered our web-page.  The FAQ section may help you in getting a sense of how easy it is to convert waste to something useful.

http://bokashicycle.com/

We all knew it was going to happen………and now it’s true…….March 30, 2009 Seattle will make the change.

Seattle to require table-scrap recycling at homes in 2009

We know composting seems to a lot of people like a “natural” and good thing to do, but it is in fact very polluting and it is expensive.  A ton of organic waste can be converted to nutrient rich soil in about 3 weeks using bokashi fermentation and costs only about $30.  It is currently costing the city of Seattle about $140 per ton and it takes 6 or more months to get the material composted.

http://www.newrules.org/environment/seattle.pdf

If you live in Washington State near Seattle……….you can save a lot of money by opting out of the soon to be enforced recycling program.  Do you think you are paying a lot to have your garbage handled by the city?   As of March 30, 2009 the citizens of Seattle will be asked to purchase another container (for their “organic waste…..food scraps) that will need to be placed curb side each week so that the G-men can send that trash up to Cedar Grove for “composting”.  Wonder why your garbage bill is going to go up?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nicolebrodeur/2008871285_brodeur17m.html

Those who don’t live near Seattle probably know the writing is on the wall.  The G-men will come knocking….looking for more ……..money…….not garbage!

Those of you who know about bokashi fermentation already know how easy it is to mix your garbage with bokashi culture mix and let it ferment in an air tight container.  You can take all of your organic food waste (even bones, egg shells, meat, and dairy products) and convert it to fermented (pickled) waste material that will then in another 7 – 10 days in the soil make a very nutrient rich soil for planting.  Instead of composting you ferment.  We’ve talked a lot about this and know a lot of people have discovered how easy it is to convert their organic waste to valuable soil for the plants.

The Bokashi 1, 2, & 3!

Here is how easy it is.  You need to have  2 fermenters, some bokashi culture mix, a tiny bit of land for burying your fermented waste, and organic waste (food waste) that would have ended up in your garbage can had you not started your bokashi adventure.

This is going to take about 15 minutes out of your life perhaps once a month to bury the pickled waste material in the soil…………….but you will be able to reduce the size of your garbage can and the frequency of the pick up.

When you tell the garbage collectors that you won’t need such a big can or tell them to stop by less frequently because there is no garbage for them to haul off, the bill you get each month will be $10 to $20 less than what you used to pay.  That happens right away!  You now get back $120 to $240 per year.  It will cost you perhaps $40 per year to get the bokashi culture mix……….but still not a bad savings on your part!

Remember……you are also taking control and reducing greenhouse gases that would have been produced if you had let the G-men take it away.  And you get to use the great soil in your own garden.  You’ll see how much better your plants do when you get diversity back in the soil (more microbes and nutrients for the plants).

Sprinkle some bokashi culture mix in the bottom of your fermenter.  Add your table scraps and food waste for the day to the bottom of the fermenter and lightly sprinkle more bokashi culture mix over the waste you added.  Press down with the pressure plate and seal the container to exclude oxygen.

Next day, you do exactly the same.  And so on one layer at a time until the fermenter is full.  You want to drain some of the fluid off every few days….discard it down the sink or dilute it with water and add it to the house plant watering.  You can also put it on the vegetable garden plants…….gets them a lot healthier.

When the first fermenter is full, put it on the bottom and begin filling the second fermenter in the same way.  When it is full………it is time for your first dig!

This is the easy part.  The soil microbes are so hungry…..and so efficient that you can keep putting your fermented waste  in the same small area over and over if you have little land.  If you had one small plot of land about 20 feet by 20 feet, you could bury 12 tons of waste material every year for the rest of your life………and you would just get richer and richer soil for your plants.  Of course you want to get the soil wherever you have plants all mixed in over time so you can benefit all of your plants……..not just those near the enriched soil.

Dig a hole about 3 feet long and 1 foot deep the width of your shovel.  Poor the fermented waste in the hole.  Mix it with a little soil.  Cover it up and you are done until next month.  Before you finish up……..use the garden hose to rinse the fermenter.

Put enough water in the bottom of the fermenter so that you can clean the porcelain plate bottom.  By pushing down the plate and twirling it around in the water you will clean the plate bottom and walls of the fermenter.  Discard the water in the hole over your waste material that is buried.  Rinse the system again to clean everything and you are done.

You can mix this soil around with soil in your garden anytime you like to get a rich better than compost soil for your garden.  Just remember to give enough time for the fermented product to finish up when it goes into the soil.  That takes about 7 – 10 days.  You shouldn’t find any residual garbage when you dig it up after a couple of weeks if you’ve been following instructions.

So you see………it isn’t too hard to take control.  It feels good to get rid of your own organic waste.  It is a good feeling to know that you are making soil richer and safer for your plants and by doing so have immediately stopped the kind of polluting greenhouse gases that are made during the composting process.  You got your trash out of the city system…………and isn’t it great to cut your garbage bill instead of letting it gradually rise each year.  You’ll never buy one of those extra curb side containers the city wants you to get so they can send your trash to composting.