Forget the Worm Farm - Get a Bokashi bucket!

I am a failed worm farmer. Not once, but twice! As a "Greenie", I feel embarrassed to admit my failures - but really, I shouldn't. Owning a worm farm isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be! That's why I've changed to something cleaner, simpler and more convenient - Bokashi composting.

A Bokashi bin and a worm farm both do the same thing - they provide a place where you can dispose of your organic waste (i.e. fruit and vegetable peelings, stale bread, tea bags, coffee grounds, eggshells) in an environmentally friendly way, instead of throwing it in the garbage. Both process the waste to give you compost, which you can use to enrich your garden soil.

My Bokashi bucket has several advantages over my old worm farm. Its only real disadvantage is that I miss the worms! I know it's hard to believe, but they become like pets: it's quite exciting to turn over a piece of bread and see hundreds of babies wriggling around. But losing my "pets" is a good thing in a way, because now I don't have the responsibility and worry of looking after them.

My first worm farm was on the balcony of my city apartment. It was a small version, but then there were only two people in my household and we didn't have a lot of waste, so I thought it would be just right - and it was, but only up to a point.

The main problem was maintenance. It's important to keep the environment balanced, so it needs to be monitored. My worms almost drowned one day in a heavy downpour, because I couldn't leave the spigot open on a balcony. Then I added too much fruit and got an explosion of fruit flies. Another time I overloaded it with green waste, which went slimy (and smelly) and attracted a host of tiny vinegar flies. If it had been at the bottom of my garden, I wouldn't have cared - but on a tiny balcony, no thanks!

Yes, I know I shouldn't have overloaded it - but that was the other problem. Even with just the two of us, I regularly had more fruit and vegetable peelings, and bread, than the little worm farm could handle. A lot of worm farmers keep a separate bag in the fridge or a box in a cool place, where they can collect the waste and add it gradually to the farm - but living in a small flat with a small fridge, I didn't have space for either, and had to throw half my organic waste in the bin.

The final straw was that although I could feel good about disposing of my organic waste properly, I could only use a small fraction of the compost in my pot plants.  I finally gave that worm farm away to a friend with a big garden.

When I moved to a townhouse I thought I'd try again. But this time I hit a different snag - rats. Or it could have been possums, I don't know. Whatever it was, they learned how to dislodge the air vents so they could push aside the lid and reach the leftover greens and fruit peel. If I'd been sure it was possums, I might have lived with that - but the thought of attracting vermin really worried me, so I sold that worm farm on eBay.

That's why the idea of indoor composting appealed - no rats! Because it's anaerobic (without oxygen) it doesn't need air vents, so the bin is safely secured. For the same reason, there's no smell. The bin sits quietly under my kitchen sink and I can forget about it until I need to throw something away.

And I can add all my waste to the bin, with no worries about overloading.

To be fair, there are a couple of minor catches.

First, cost. Once I'd bought the worm farm, bedding and worms, I didn't need any other supplies - the worms did the rest. With the Bokashi bin, each time you add waste to the bin, you must add a layer of Bokashi powder - a natural fermentation starter which helps break down the waste. So, obviously, you're going to have to buy a regular supply of the stuff. It's not expensive - about $15 for two gallons - and personally, I think it's a small price to pay to save the planet.  Anyway, remember you'll never have to buy fertilizer for your garden again!

The other is disposal. Once your Bokashi bin is full - which takes a surprisingly long time, because it does compact down - you need to dig a hole in your garden and bury the "compost". It's not like a worm farm where everything has been completely transformed into a rich soil, which can be spread anywhere on top of the garden: this stuff is still half-digested and would look awful, so it must be buried. Once underground it will continue to break down and enrich the soil - but I'm a bit concerned I'll run out of places to dig! However, we do have a wide strip of bushland across the road, so I'm thinking that will be my next stop!

If I ever move to a big house with a large garden, I'll probably have a worm farm again.  I'd buy a bigger, sturdier model with a heavy lid that a possum can't shift, and I'd put it right down at the bottom of the garden where even if it does develop the odd smell or attract the odd fly, I won't care!   But right now, the Bokashi is the perfect solution for my inner-city lifestyle.

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All text copyright Marisa Wright. Worm farm photos by Tim Musson.