Epilogue

 

Team Bokashi ( - Sasha + Sebastian) reunited one Wednesday afternoon to bury it, once and for all.

The soil was rocky (and cinderblocky), but we did it with the help of a frontloader and a couple apple cider popsicles.

We decided on a location where the acidity of the bokashi would not interfere with any root systems but would still be easily accessible.  Oh, and it smelled awful.  Like rancid apple juice.  Fortunately, if this system stays in place at Solebury, this shouldn't be the case every time.  We suspect that this was a "bad batch" because we did not drain the liquid Bokashi tea.  While it makes the bokashi smell bad, it should not affect the quality of the finished product.

It will continue to decompose in the ground for another month.  Until then...

Photolog 2

Maggots-
We needed brown matter to aide the decomposition so we got wood chips and leaves from large piles at school.  Little did we know, these piles were home to common house fly larvae.  They ended up in our compost.  Fortunately, fly larvae are just icky and not harmful to compost.  The only gross part was the smell for the one day that the larvae were alive inside Bokashi.  Then they died.  Everything is normal again.

Outside the contained passive compost

The crate of passive compost seemed to work well for Solebury until we realized it was attracting all sorts of pests.  A lot of the waste was scattered on the ground as crows, woodchucks, and dinosaurs made a feast of our biology project.

Week 3

Today is the penultimate day of school and our last biology class to work on this project.  Unfortunately we did not have enough time to assess the finished products of each type of composting; however, we did anticipate this and we will come to our conclusions based on the data we have now.

Pictures!

Contained passive

Black Box

Bokashi

As you can see, bokashi has come a long way.  It also picked up some maggots which made it smell absolutely rancid for about a day, but everything is back to normal now and the walls are just coated in baby fly corpses.

We will post our final analysis later today.



Week two

Week tw is coming to a close.  So far there are only pictures of us and Bokashi because William took the pictures (how dare you say that we favor Bokashi.  We love all of our children equally.)  We will add pictures of the passive and black box composters soon. (They don't look much different).

Adding brown matter

Sasha tells a story.  Hannah looks scornfully at the ground.

It's like bonding over a campfire, but better and smellier.

Baby Bokashi is growing up!!

This week went really well.  We had a whole load of compost to sort out; it was awesome.  It's totally because we stood by the compost bins during lunch, rewarding composters with cookies and stickers.  In the words of Anthony, "cookies work for everything".  It also rained a lot this week so once things start to dry out we'll need to add more dry carbon matter (leaves, grass clippings).

Week 1

Well, here we are at the end of week one.  Really it's only been a day, but today is Friday...

Bokashi

Black Box

Passive

Note that the ratio of green:brown material is a little off... In order to get the Bokashi going we needed to fill the bottom with quick-decomposing matter so we had a bunch of leaves to deal with.  The ratio will balance out as necessary as the project continues.

Also, one of us accidentally left the bag of bokashi culture mix outside overnight and a woodchuck thought it would be a tasty snack.  After tearing open the bag she discovered that it tasted like weird bacteria so didn't eat any but left it scattered on the ground.  It was fun to clean up.  I love you, nature.

Photolog

The "Black box" composter

The passive composting bin

Sasha mixing the compost with perfect form.

Teamwork!

A Dream Come True!

 

(photo by William Collier)

Look what we got!!

Revisions

Timeline Revision

April 21, 2011--- purchase bokashi kit

 tbd

Revised experiment

3 different kinds of composting—

1.      Passive composting (current system at Solebury)

a.       A pile of food and yard waste, turned occasionally

b.      Location:  Outside biology classroom windows

c.       Size: 4ft x 4ft

2.      Black box composting

a.       Food and yard waste stored in an aerated black container

b.      Location: Outside biology classroom windows

c.       Size: 4ft x 4ft

3.      Bokashi composting

a.       2 weeks of fermentation of all food waste

b.      1 month of passive mixing with existing soil

c.       Location: Ali’s house

d.      Size: 50 gal container, 4ft x 4ft hole

The goal:

To figure out which kind of composting is the most productive and best suited for Solebury.  This will be determined by the quality, quantity, and speed of the produced humus.

Timeline

1. By the end of this week (Thursday, April 14): Order bokashi kit + 1 extra bucket

2. By Wednesday of next week (April 20): Send in proposal to Tom about digging on campus

When Bokashi kit arrives...

1. Set up a calendar about collecting waste and tending to buckets/holes

2. Let dining hall staff and Robin know about what we are doing

3. Determine whether waste is going on/off campus (depending on what Tom says)

4. Start collecting waste

Remember to...

1. Pay back Jon with SEAC money

2. Coordinate what's happening with bokashi vs previous method of composting.

Summary!

Summary:

Exploring Compost:

Specifically, to develop a more efficient composting system for Solebury School. We will be experimenting with the Bokashi composting method, both with a starter kit and with our own EM culture.

Resources thus far:

·         William Collier *

·         Jon Freer *

·         http://www.bokashicycle.com/

·         http://www.wildlifegardeners.org/forum/fertilizing-soil-amendments/1292-extreme-bokashi-make-your-own-innoculant.html

·         http://www.teraganix.com/EM-Bokashi-Recipe-s/262.htm

·         http://www.hawaiihealingtree.org/?p=163

Specific goals:

1.      To understand the biology of both anaerobic and aerobic compost

2.      To find out if Bokashi is right for Solebury

3.      Possibly, to create a more organized and usable (if not entirely altered) compost system at Solebury

Background science so far:

Accelerated natural decomposition of food by effective microorganisms (EM) through anaerobic fermentation. Following fermentation, exposure to aerobic bacteria changes CO₂  into nitrates beneficial to the soil. 

What’s next?

·         Purchase culture and materials necessary

·         Start fermentation process

·         Write proposal for digging on campus (and present to Tom)

·         (Make our own culture)


*photographs by Alex Keller

The Essence of Bokashi

Bokashi would be little more than compost in a bucket without the inoculant mixture that is added to the natural waste products. The inoculant is primarily composed of wheat bran or newspapers, in addition to that there is water, molasses and E.M. (effective-microorganisms). The E.M. is the reason for the accelerated decomposition of the compost, the molasses serves as food for the microorganisms and the water and wheat bran/newspaper is a place to live, essentially the catalyst of the E.M.'s life. The proportions of these items are added in these proportions:

Ingredient	10lbs	50lbs	2000lbs
EM	4 Tablespoons	3/4 Cup	1 Gallon
Molasses	4 Tablespoons	3/4 Cup	1 Gallon
Water	10 Cups	3-4 Gallons	75-100 Gallons
Bran (carbon material)	10lbs	50lbs	2000lbs

After this mixture reaches the correct consistency it is stored in a large bin (in the case of wheat bran) where it ferments for up to a month which allows the E.M. to multiply as well as yeast to take root. At the end of the month the wheat bran should have white fuzz covering its surface, this indicates that the bran has fermented correctly and for the right amount of time.

So, you may have been wondering what is this E.M. thing; sure they are microorganisms that help the compost, but what do they do? First of all in bokashi composting there are three main types of microorganisms: lactobacilli, fungi/yeast and phototropic bacilli. These microorganisms need to eat. In the beginning the molasses is used as their source of food, when added to your compost these organisms eat up just about everything in there.

 Thats pretty cool but whats even cooler is that these microorganisms aren't all that special you can ferment your own E.M with three things; water, rice and milk.

Heres How

1. You begin with a mixture of 1 part rice to 2 parts water, you shake this vigorously and then drain. The liquid should have a milky color to it. 
2. Then pour the liquid into a container preferably a wide one like a mason jar, it should fill about 1/4 to 1/2 the jar. 
3. Lightly cover this with a cheesecloth or tea towel, this allows air in and out easily. 
4. Allow this to sit in a cool dark place for 4-8 days
5. Now you take that liquid and add it to a larger container along with 10 parts milk or skim milk.
6. Lightly cover an allow to ferment for around 14 days.
7. Finally strain the solids and follow the instructions for mixing with the wheat bran or newspaper, the concentration of microorganisms may vary from batch to batch so you will have to adjust the amount of E.M. liquid you add accordingly. It should be just right if you allow everything proper fermentation time.

Our Wildest Dreams

link

This is our proposal to purchase a Bokashi starter kit.

The kit includes: 

1 - 55 gallon HDPE Fermenter
1 - Band clamp
1 - Lid with locking flange and seal to exclude oxygen when the fermenter is closed
1 - Filter cassette for fluid removal
1 - Safety pressure release valve - spigot
1 - Key for opening spigot safety pressure valve
1 - 25 pound bag of bokashi culture mix
1 - 1 gallon concentrate of accelerant for yard waste processing
1 - 1 liter spray bottle for priming yard waste before adding culture mix
1 - Instruction set for yard waste processing
1 - Bokashi mix dispensing unit

Cost: $299.00

The Process

Before we get started, we are going to need to plan everything out to ensure we won't run into any problems.

1. Order starter kit.
• this will consist of some air-tight container, a culture mix, and maybe some other things that aren't exactly necessary (scoopers, etc) and then figure out where to keep everything.
2. Figure out what to do about digging.
• the second step in the Bokashi process (after ferrmenting the waste) is to mix it with soil, presumably in the ground, to create fertile soil.  that whole thing with the quarry prevents us from digging.  What do we do?  Did off campus?  Find an alternative to digging?
3. Talk to the dining hall and mantainence staff.
• they are all involved with the current compost pile and we should let them know what we're doing.  Bokashi is awesome because you can compost things you normally couldnt, like meat and other animal products, so we'll have to figure out a new system of gathering the waste.
4. Make a schedule.
• since Bokashi fermenting is a relatively quick process, we probably will need to tend to it more than just once a week for work job.
5. There has to be more than this, but I'm going to lunch now!

Why Bokashi?

Bokashi composting is a method of dealing with waste that comes from Japan.  It uses anaerobic process to ferment/"pickle" waste in a fast, practically odorless manner.  It is ideal for urban settings.  We also think it would work well here at Solebury because it is capable of processing even large amounts of waste in a way that would not be disruptive nor repulsive to any higher-up figures.  Our current compost pile is more like a heap of damp mulch with bits of eggshells peppered in.  It isn't realy doing much.  Needless to say, our experimenting with Bokashi will be beneficial to both satiating our need for a hands-on biology project and the greater Solebury community.

What's going on here?

Hello, welcome to post #1 on our journey into the world of bokashi composting.
We haven't really done anything yet. 

In the near future, we will be blogging about our experience with bokashi composting.  How exactly does it work, What are the benefits, what effect does it have on soil fertility, and is it right for Solebury?  We might end up growing things (probably some kind of mushroom) in the end product, but that's a while away.

This project will take at least to the end of the trimester (June), but could end up being long-term.  Pictures and observations will be posted along the way!

Love,
Ali, Sasha, Hannah, and Wyatt