Hey folks,
My first time in the forums - how's things? I did a brief search for a thread about bokashi, and though I've seen it brought up in several responses to other compost queries, I have not seen a dedicated discussion. If it exists, could someone link me to it?
I live in a moderate-size apartment building in a residential city in Japan. I'd like to begin container gardening for the building this year, and establish a centralized compost system for the inhabitants, as well. In our individual unit, we've been using bokashi to ferment our organic matter, and it has been an unexpectedly satisfying experience. Many other aspects of life in Japan (at least for a freshly-arrived foreigner) are incredibly discouraging as regard attempts to acquire local produce or avoid acquiring unnecessary packaging for almost ALL store-bought goods. However, the infrastructure is certainly in place for each and every living unit to convert their own food scraps into soil on a regular and sustainable basis. I was considering this thread as a way to document the process over the year, and to try and answer any and all questions regarding my use of bokashi during my time in Japan.
I would love to hear your thoughts or suggestions about the best way to go about coordinating this effort among others in the building. Right now, my idea is to convince everyone to use bokashi in their individual units, and then to construct a large centralized container for the fully-fermented materials to further convert into soil for use in container gardening for the building (the building sits on a concrete plot for cars, with only a thin strip of fenced lawn and unkempt street shrubs surrounding the perimeter).
Here are some pictures of our first accumulation. The pictures are of 2 months of fermented scraps just after depositing them into a larger holding unit on our back patio. I layered the base with some potting soil, added these scraps (2 bokashi bins worth), and then layered some more potting soil on top. I compressed the whole thing, and closed the container. It is not entirely airtight, but I've read that after the initial two weeks of anaerobic fermentation, the scraps can be integrated with natural soil in order to speed up the conversion. Any thoughts on this? Should I be wary of contamination?
Anyhow, I'll post again when I make some sort of progress. Thanks, all!
C
