WHAT IS BOKASHI? FARM SCALE BOKASHI | SUPER FAST "COMPOST" | TAP SHORTS

In this TAP SHORTS we take a look back at when we first made BOKASHI. This fermented organic material is different from compost in that it is made with anaerobic conditions and never turned. The time to maturation is very quick, within 2 months with the right conditions, making this a very viable option for production of a fantastic fertiliser/compost/mulch. We are finding it perfect for creating Charles Dowding style no dig/no till veg beds. It's also great for adding around fruit trees in our forest garden.
WHAT ARE TAP SHORTS?
TAP SHORTS are extracts from our FARMVLOGS - nuggets of information, be it a market gardening tutorial, tool demo, handy tip or just something we feel needs to be highlighted - reconfigured into a bite size video for you to quickly watch.
About Tap o' Noth Farm:
Hi, we're James and Rosa! Welcome to Tap o' Noth Farm, a quarter acre Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) market garden and 8 acre permaculture designed forest garden farm/homestead in Aberdeenshire, NE Scotland. We practice home scale to small farm scale agroforestry and regenerative agriculture methods to produce organic fruit and vegetables, raise dairy goats for all our raw milk needs, Shetland sheep and geese to graze our silvopasture and coppice systems and laying hens, moved around in a Chickshaw, for an abundance of eggs.
Our videos aren't 'how to's' - more videos to give a glimpse into our lifestyle and hopefully inspire you to bring aspects of what you see into your own life.
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If you're looking for even more content from James and Rosa then you can become a patron of Tap Farm. It takes James between 5-10 hrs to edit our vlogs, let alone the time it takes to film and farm at the same time! Your support will aid us greatly in producing our FARMVLOGS, enabling us to take the time needed to craft a beautiful film and to help fund the licences needed for the vlog soundtrack. We will list your name at the end of each vlog episode so everyone knows how brilliant you are! We will also keep you updated on our farm work/life by posting exclusive video content that is not available on KZbin such as FARMVLOG outtakes, behind the scenes footage, hints & tips and more in depth videos discussing the many permaculture systems to be found on the farm PLUS the odd photo from Rosa and James.
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#bokashi #quickcompost #nodig

[@MadAcreFarms]

This is really great info! You guys have inspired us to try this approach as we do not have easy access to compost and really think we could do something similar on our farm. Thank you!

[@TapoNothFarm]

No worries guys!

[@tinyapothecarykitchen]

Greetings from Idaho! I learned about Bokashi from you guys and have just got my first cup of Bokashi compost tea from my Bokashi bucket that I bought to keep in my tiny kitchen. Yay, no more wasted kitchen scraps! The fermented smell was quite pleasant and I've used it to fertilize some Elder trees that I'm rooting in pots. Thanks, as always, for the great tips! I love everything you're doing!

[@TapoNothFarm]

Thanks so much Jana, happy that you are having bokashi success!

[@anoobhavgupta9564]

Thats verry interesting. In india thats basically how we make heaps of organic waste and make gold out of it. The only difference is that we don't use plastic traps instead make a plaster of cowdung and seal it off, that provides just perfect amount of aeration as per our climate!! Cheers...🍻

[@ff-ti7nj]

is it good for chicken manure? I want to make a chicken coop for constant egg supply, but I don't know what to do with their manure.

[@anoobhavgupta9564]

@@ff-ti7nj yup works for any kind of organic matter, its just the game of balancing greens with browns. All the best !!

[@ff-ti7nj]

@@anoobhavgupta9564 Thanks

[@TapoNothFarm]

Fantastic to use a natural material instead of plastic!

[@TheNightwalker247]

I heard of people using lake mud for the sealing

[@carolbulmer8253]

I like these vlogs! Good information concisely presented😊

[@TapoNothFarm]

Thanks so much! 😊

[@cchurch5037]

Way better than turning that heap by hand ! 😅👍

[@TapoNothFarm]

Totally!

[@YogiHollowFarm]

Interesting info. Never heard of this. Thanks for sharing this!

[@TapoNothFarm]

Thanks for watching!

[@jasonhatfield4747]

We've been using bokashi for over a year now and it's been a huge help to our efforts at making great compost. Bokashi does actually turn to compost eventually. We use the bokashi to initially process our kitchen scraps. It sits in air tight 5 gallon buckets for approximately 2-3 weeks until well fermented. Then we dump it out on our compost pile and turn it. This causes the compost to heat up greatly for a couple of weeks before finally cooling back down. Once it's out there for a few weeks, it forms a nice compost. It has helped us immensely. We buy our bokashi from sd microbes in San Diego, go the 50lbs bags and they last forever.

[@ff-ti7nj]

are you saying you can get more passive heat from bokashi than with compost piles?

[@jasonhatfield4747]

@@ff-ti7nj Well, I've noticed that bokashi additions heat up our compost pile quicker and hotter than just adding plain food scraps or greens from the garden. Plus, in the winter, we don't have anything green to add so the bokashi keeps the pile going.

[@GetToTheFarm]

very interesting! here in the high rockies we need to create compost quickly it takes a couple years to break a regular pile down.

[@veghcsenge]

I have found you because of bokashi. We have a massive heap of goat bedding in our backyard (we live on 1/3 acre) and I have to do something with it. I started to make compost with the Berkeley method, but it's just impossible, to do the whole pile by hand that way. I've read about EM, but could find only very little info about using it farm scale. I was sooo happy, when I found your video about fermenting goat bedding with EM, because that's exactly what I wanted to do! A week ago we made our first pile, just one m3 for testing. I was worried about the temperature being too cold for the microorganism, but it seems to be OK, the pile is warm (42C), so I'm very hopeful! I really want it to work like yours! 😀 I'm also very curious about your experiences with using the ferment for no dig, because that's my plan too!

[@TapoNothFarm]

Wonderful, sounds like its all going to plan!

[@silva-anderida7695]

Really interesting.Cheers!

[@cristianchan5402]

Bokashi makes your compost mature quickly, and clean..

[@karenharkness4847]

Work smarter not harder is defo the way to go.

[@lorilumax6850]

I have wanted to use bakashi for a few years.. I am looking forward to seeing how well it works for you ..

[@Jesus-hk7cq]

It seems to me a good way of doing it that I can use in Spain. I have been using earthworm humus for a long time and I plan to use it from now on in crops. Thanks for such interesting videos.

[@TapoNothFarm]

Sounds great, you're welcome, thanks for watching.

[@tamrahawkes3170]

I’ve never heard of bokashi, but I wonder would there be any issue with rodents? I live in an area that has rat problems and I don’t want to be feeding them lol!

[@farmfacts4664]

Very informative, can we do it with only bedding full of manure and em1 we dont have this clay available?

[@pilkyish]

Look forward to see how you get on with this,. Will you use the end result in the same way as compost? Will the biology live on when it is applied and introduced to oxygen?

[@TapoNothFarm]

we use it like a compost, for feeding the soil life around our veggies and as deep mulch. Good question re the biology, I'm sure there will be changes in the varieties of bacteria/yeasts/fungi but they will certainly thrive.

[@pilkyish]

@@TapoNothFarm thanks for your reply. Good luck👍🏻

[@TheSamba37]

There's no reason to be continually buying in EM nor is there reason to make your own. You can inoculate the next pile with a reserved portion of your last pile.

[@TheSamba37]

It's awfully pedantic to say it isn't compost. Maybe it isn't tradition compost, but it's definitely decomposing things into a nutrient source for use as a soil amendment. All the microbes you find in bokashi/EM are also found in your compost pile and soil, you're just isolating the beneficial facultative anaerobes.

[@TapoNothFarm]

Talking of pedantic 🤣

[@TheSamba37]

@@TapoNothFarm Yeah, I know. This is just one that bothers me, at least locally. There's too many people where I'm at excluding bokashi users from composting groups and events because of this and I feel like it's harming the community, especially when there's a large portion of us that are apartment tenants and don't have access to anything else.

[@britannyguenthard3773]

Hello, wondering if y’all have any updates on the system. Working on a non-profit flower farm in WA, USA. We are trying to figure out the best (and fastest) way to compost the mounds of green-waste we create. We have 2 bokashi bins but i do not think they are big enough for our scale. Would love to hear if the tarp method worked well for y’all and any updates overall on what composting process you have found most successful.

[@TapoNothFarm]

Hi there! We used around 16 cubic meters of goat bedding and applied EM (unfortunately can’t remember how many litres). It fermented well and was useable within a couple of months with no turning, just covered with an air tight tarp. It was a little dry though and some areas didn’t ferment well due to the dry straw so we should add more water next time. Depends what manure you are using really, goat manure is pretty dry compared to cattle. If you’re making it from garden waste then the moisture level will probably be ok, but you’ll need a carbon source. I wouldn’t say the finished material was any better than the compost we’ve made in the past from the same material, but it was the hands off/ no turning that made bokashi a win for us. Hope that helps.