It won't be as pretty as the pre-made buckets, but for the price of two five gallon buckets (picture the ones you can buy at home improvement stores) and a few minutes spent with a drill, you can make your own bucket for Bokashi. It's pretty simple really:
- On the bottom of one bucket, drill 20 to 30 holes with a 1/8 to 1/4 inch drill bit.
- Set the drilled bucket into the other bucket, which you have not drilled holes in.
- Cover the bucket with a tight-fitting lid. Usually, you will find matching lids near the buckets in the home center.
- Start adding your food scraps and Bokashi to the bucket.
A few tips for using this system: the bucket needs to be air-tight for the contents to ferment properly. Remember, Bokashi is an anaerobic system. If you find that the lid you've purchased doesn't fit as tightly as you'd like, place a cloth or old t-shirt over the top of the bucket, and then snap the lid on. The extra bit of fabric will make the bucket more airtight. This basic system doesn't have a spigot, but it would be easy enough to harvest any liquid by lifting the top bucket off of the bottom bucket, and pouring any liquid that has collected in the bottom bucket into a separate container. If you want a spigot, you can find them at most hardware stores and home centers for under ten dollars.
All together, this system should cost less than $20, and requires nothing more than a basic drill in the way of tools. Good luck!
Comments
Ah-ha! So there’s a place for liquids in a Bokashi bucket. I didn’t know that. Thanks!
Aren’t the Bokashi flakes(?) expensive also? I heard that you can make like a year’s supply with a feed bag of wheat bran and a bottle of liquid EM1.
Do you put meat and bones in your Bokashi bucket or do you stick to the usual compost ingredients? (kitchen scraps, coffee grinds, etc)
Great poste, Colleen, thanks for the excellent tip. You’re right, bokashi buckets are expensive, but I suppose you’re paying a certain amount more because they are still classed as a speciality product. Once they become more mainstream, the price will inevitably come down.
Anthony, yes there’s a place for liquids. In a shop bought bucket, the waste material sits on a pierced plastic tray and any liquid collects in the base of the unit and drains towards a tap.
Bokashi bran is quite expensive, but a little goes a long way, 600 grams should last you about 2 months. As you say, you can make your own. There’s a great little video on YouTube showing you how: Take a look…
You can certainly put meat, fish and cooked food scraps into your bokashi bin, but I would avoid bones and anything too moist. Take a look at my Bokashi FAQs page for more info. Hope this helps.
Hi Anthony,
Yep! How much liquid you get depends on what you put in the bin, though. I got quite a bit of liquid out of mine because of all of the squash, tomatoes, and melons we eat. I haven’t been putting meat in mine, only because I want to make absolutely sure that no “wildlife” finds it—though I can’t imagine that anything would eat this stuff once it’s pickled for a few weeks
The Bokashi bran can be expensive, that’s probably the only drawback. It’s definitely more economical to make your own. I found a few recipes on line, but the one that looked the simplest was at the EM America site. Here’s the link, if you want to see what they recommend: http://emamerica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=28&Itemid=226
The bottle of EM is not cheap, but it’s definitely cheaper than buying one of the pre-made 2 lb. bags every couple of months.
Thanks for stopping by!
I just started with Bokashi about a month ado & am ready to “plant” my first bucket into the garden. I was looking for a way to get compost for my very small garden. Since we do have a problem with outdoor rodents & my space is very small, I thought I’d try bokashi. I’m really anxious to see how the first batch turns out.
I did buy a set of buckets since I’m not really handy & it came with a 3 month supply of bokashi bran. When this is don, I plan on making some of my own, using the recipe at http://bokashislope.blogspot.com/2008/09/baby-batches-of-bokashi-bran.html. All the other recipes I found were for 20, 30, even 50 pounds!!
hi!
I’m just getting informed about composting and your blogs are really helpful! I was wondering how long it takes to actually harvest your first batch of compost with Bokashi composting? Thanks!
Gabriella–
Great question. I actually decided to answer it in its own post, which you can read here. Thanks for the question, as well as the kind words about my site!
I tried to use and make my bokashi, I am very happy about it, it is a really good way to compost!
What is the purpose of the second bucket? I am not interested in saving the liquid for gardening. Since my purpose is to not add to landfills, it seems one bucket would suffice. Is that true?
The purpose of the second bucket is to let the waste in the first one to ferment abit before putting it in you garden. Once you’ve let sit at least a week ( some people let it ferment till their spare fills up) then it will break down much faster in the garden…worms seems to love it more, the more let it set as well.
I always let my bokashi bin fermenting as well, while I’m filling up my second. Works great and like Taro says, worms seems to absolutely love it.