bokashi, bigger scale

We have a piece of land which is heavy, poor, no drainage clay soil with some sand. We are weighing various plans to improve the soil. We already do plant nurse trees, mulch and the usual things.
How about a bigger bokashi? I watched some videos were people do bokashi in silage plastic.
We could pick up restaurant waste to feed it.
Does anyone have experience in what's happening if bokashi is dug into clay soil?
Some people say it's good in a worm farm others say it isn't.
I understand that bokashi is not compost and not a finished product.
Any input?

I am looking to do the same thing in Central QLD. I have heard it's possible as some Youtubers in the USA are doing it in compost systems as well as bokashi systems, I just haven't been able to find out how.

Angelika Maier wrote:We have a piece of land which is heavy, poor, no drainage clay soil with some sand. We are weighing various plans to improve the soil. We already do plant nurse trees, mulch and the usual things.
How about a bigger bokashi? I watched some videos were people do bokashi in silage plastic.
We could pick up restaurant waste to feed it.
Does anyone have experience in what's happening if bokashi is dug into clay soil?
Some people say it's good in a worm farm others say it isn't.
I understand that bokashi is not compost and not a finished product.
Any input?

Our community garden is about to test the bokashi + worm farm system, stay tuned. I think about 15 families will participate.

From what I understand, worms don't like fresh bokashi too much, it's too acidic for them. Some say just wait three days and they'll move on in. We are going to experiment with mixing in various things to make it easier for them: slaked lime to raise the pH and provide calcium, biochar, maybe sawdust, grass clippings and fallen leaves when we can get them, and as much garden waste from undiseased plants as we can.

We are curious to find out if diseased plants (tomatoes with late blight, curcubits with powdery mildew) and troublesome weeds (we have problems with bindweed/morning glory and oxalis/wood sorrell) will become totally inocuous if passed through our bokashi system. That would be awfully nice. And in that case, we might be daring and try to imitate your large-scale system and process all the garden waste for the community garden, which is probably on the order of 6m3 or so annually.

I'm afraid I don't know a thing about silage plastic. Yet. I too have had a hard time finding information on large-scale bokashi systems. Maybe it's down to you and us to innovate the system! But honestly, anything that can exclude air decently should work just fine. The only confounding factor might be allowing the liquid to escape. Poking holes in the bottom would turn it into single-use plastic, so yecch. Maybe long-term some sort of airtight tarp with a row of grommets down the middle or some such thing would be the ticket, maybe a camping tarp or two tied together with plastic over the top once finished would work.  

I've read a lot about bokashi, and I haven't ever read of anyone reporting a negative experience about digging it into any particular type of soil. Might need a good muck layer underneath on very sandy soil, but I think in clay it should be ideal. I'd almost swear I've read about various positive experiences of digging bokashi into clay.

One last thing: if your soil drains poorly, is there any chance you've got a hardpan layer underneath that needs breaking up?

Don't forget supermarkets when scavenging for waste, they probably throw out more than restaurants. In our area, they're pretty thoroughly scavenged already, but just in case...

I dig it into clay and it works great.

that said, i'm not sure i see the point of doing a large-scale bokashi thing. After fermenting, it needs to be mixed/aged with soil, maybe i don't understand how it would be mixed if it were in a silage tube?
Frankly I think it would be easier, if you have browns to compost, to just make compost piles, rows or trenches/pits to do larger-scale soil improvement on your land.
My land was much like you describe- formerly sand quarry, now just thick layers of clay. I made hugel beds, dug in junk wood and roots and all sorts of organic matter, covered it up and planted on top. Occasionally I will open a trench and bury citrus peels or some larger quantity of organic matter that would fill my whole bokashi bucket, then bury it and later plant on top of it. I'm always throwing stuff in my soil! And it's improved significantly.

I actually found a pretty good resource, however it is a podcast only so no pictures! flower farm The reason for wanting a bit of a bigger scale is that we don't produce much food waste at all, when we are on the property we cook outside and everything just drops on the ground. But I probably could get restaurant scraps and then the whole operation would be worth the while.
Our soil hasn't got a hardpan it is simply that clay and it ends at the bedrock which is sandstone (my husband tried to dig a well) it is simply one big layer!
That podcast is really interesting!

I found some youtube on large-scale bokashi.  I have not watched the videos:

Bokashi is Japanese for "Letting it be". And that's exactly the big advantage: this special type of compost heap doesn't need to be turned all the time to get the oxygen in, because it is an 'anaerobic' (no oxygen) compost heap.

Wow, Anne, thank you! Just watching the first of the above videos, I got intrigued with what they're doing and hopped onto their YouTube channel. They followed up this short with a long report, bokashi section starts at 3:47:



The long and short of it is that pretty much exactly what Angelika was originally proposing above worked really well for them! I'm excited and am already thinking about our version of this project! Thanks everyone!!

Dave de Basque wrote:
The only confounding factor might be allowing the liquid to escape. Poking holes in the bottom would turn it into single-use plastic, so yecch.

On a small 5 gallon bucket scale, I've currently got what basically amounts to a small grate in the bottom of my bucket to hold most of the material up out of the liquid while it ferments. But I don't actually drain any of the liquid out until I'm ready to empty the entire bucket. I have considered changing this, and still may at some point, but that's how I have it set up for now at least and proves that it isn't always absolutely necessary to drain the liquid.  But a the larger scale fermentation, it might depend on the setup.

There is another option I am planning to try but haven't gotten to yet. I'm planning to experiment with getting rid of that metal grate and starting with a thick layer of dry biochar (fairly small pieces, but not necessarily powder or anything) at the bottom of the bucket.  The biochar should be capable of a lot of absorption and the liquid from the bokashi will inoculate it well so it is ready to use - though I may just dump the whole thing in a worm bin anyway for further "processing" at which point the biochar should help maintain the desired moisture level of that system.

Again, how well that would work for a larger scale fermentation may depend on how it is set up (and of course I haven't even actually tested it on a small scale, but I don't see why it wouldn't work).  I'm considering trying it in a 55 gallon drum as well, but I need to figure out a good way to move the drum around, dump it out, etc. before I do that and then find myself with a massive barrel of bokashi ferment that I can't move without scooping it out by hand or something lol.