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Today was the day I planned to empty my first bokashi bin into the compost heap.
It took a month to fill and I left it another 3 weeks to ferment. I was a bit worried that the smell may be horrible as a large proportion of the contents were meat based, including raw chicken skin and fish.
Took the top off, smelt OK to me but looked no different, no white mold but thankfully no green mold either.
Very heavy as I'd really packed it in and pressed down each time I filled it. Turned it upsidedown over the compost bin and it just fell out in one big heavy lump. Easy to take the plastic drain bit off the now top. Quite facinating seeing all the differnt coloured layers.
Got my big garden fork and broke it all up, turning the heap and mixing well.
Smell was fine, just a vinegar, almost fruity smell, so I presume it worked fine.
Looking forward to seeing how this affects the compost heap.
Only thing not happy about is the tap, as it leaked. It came with 2 rubbery washers, the tap and a plastic nut. Wasn't sure where to put the washers, so put one on either side of the hole in the bin. But when tightening the nut, a difficult thing to do, the inner washer kept popping over the nut. So ended up not tightening it as much as would have liked and subsequently it did leak. Upon emptying I noticed the washer had indeed popped off again.
On the new one I started I only put one washer on and put this on the outside of the hole in the bin and could therefore tighten the nut better. May also smear around the outside with Vasaline just incase.
Hope this reassures anyone thinking of using boksahi bins and scared off by stories of terrible, retching inducing smells.
I did make a 'pad' to put over the food to basically seal it off from the large air pocket above. I used a few layers of cling film folded over which worked well.
It took a month to fill and I left it another 3 weeks to ferment. I was a bit worried that the smell may be horrible as a large proportion of the contents were meat based, including raw chicken skin and fish.
Took the top off, smelt OK to me but looked no different, no white mold but thankfully no green mold either.
Very heavy as I'd really packed it in and pressed down each time I filled it. Turned it upsidedown over the compost bin and it just fell out in one big heavy lump. Easy to take the plastic drain bit off the now top. Quite facinating seeing all the differnt coloured layers.
Got my big garden fork and broke it all up, turning the heap and mixing well.
Smell was fine, just a vinegar, almost fruity smell, so I presume it worked fine.
Looking forward to seeing how this affects the compost heap.
Only thing not happy about is the tap, as it leaked. It came with 2 rubbery washers, the tap and a plastic nut. Wasn't sure where to put the washers, so put one on either side of the hole in the bin. But when tightening the nut, a difficult thing to do, the inner washer kept popping over the nut. So ended up not tightening it as much as would have liked and subsequently it did leak. Upon emptying I noticed the washer had indeed popped off again.
On the new one I started I only put one washer on and put this on the outside of the hole in the bin and could therefore tighten the nut better. May also smear around the outside with Vasaline just incase.
Hope this reassures anyone thinking of using boksahi bins and scared off by stories of terrible, retching inducing smells.
I did make a 'pad' to put over the food to basically seal it off from the large air pocket above. I used a few layers of cling film folded over which worked well.
, but I get the white mold, and the liquid smells of vinegar, so suppose it's ok. I put it in the compost bin, and put some old compost over it, I'm using the old stuff from the tomatoes at the moment. When I emptied the last compost bin everything was well broken up, and there was no smells at all. OH did say I could have removed the chicken bones before spreading it on the garden though!
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