How to Keep Your Garden Healthy Without Buying Fertilizer

Here’s an eco-friendly tip I picked up recently.

Don’t put your food waste into the garbage bin. Recycle it.

Why?

Because the food waste will end up in landfill, where it breaks down and produces methane, a greenhouse gas.

An increased level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is one cause of global warming. (More on that at the end of this article.)

Instead, consider recycling your food waste with a Bokashi bucket.

Here’s how it works: A Bokashi bucket and a sprinkling of EM Bokashi will help your food waste to break down and be converted over time into soil conditioner that you can use on your garden.

“That’s good,” you may be thinking, “but won’t food waste smell?”

Here’s the good news.

The makers of the Bokashi bucket say that food waste that decomposes in a Bokashi bucket smells (and looks) just like pickles.

What’s Bokashi?

Bokashi is a Japanese term that means “fermented organic matter”.
How do you use a Bokashi bucket to recycle food waste?

Basically, you empty all food waste into the bucket, sprinkle a handful of EM Bokashi over the top, drain off the liquids that form at the bottom (Bokashi juice), and repeat.

EM Bokashi is a pleasant smelling product made using a combination of sawdust and bran that has been infused with Effective Micro-organisms (EM). EM Bokashi has traditionally been used to increase the microbial diversity and activity in soils and to supply nutrients to plants.

When the bucket has filled up, you take it out to the garden, dig a trench and empty the contents of the bucket into the trench and cover it with soil.

In about six to eight weeks, the food waste would have completely decomposed to form a nutrient-rich soil conditioner for your garden.

The Bokashi juice from the fermenting process can be diluted and used as a fertilizer for the garden and for potted plants.

Instead of buying fertilizer, compost and mulch from Bunnings or Big W, just use what you were planning to throw out anyway.

Now that’s eco-smart and wallet-smart!

A side note:
Why should we be concerned about greenhouse gases?

According to CSIRO Australia, “Increasing levels of greenhouse gases are likely to produce a warming at the Earth’s surface. This warming is likely to lead to world-wide changes in weather and climate. Some places may get more rain and storms while others may get less.”

Increasing amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming could also lead to more health concerns.

A statement by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that climate change is likely to have wide-ranging and mostly adverse impacts on human health, with significant loss of life.

You only have to read the news to see that this has already started to happen.