All Seasons Indoor Composter Kit - 5 Gal Bin, 2 lb Bokashi Compost Starter

I've used bokashi quite a lot over the years and after moving across the country our last composting set was left behind. I bought this starter kit because it seemed to be the best value for money. Bokashi is a pre-treatment for your food scraps and we use this mostly for pre-treating meat, fish, or dairy. I add my food scraps, press the air out using an old potato masher, then sprinkle about 1-1.5 cups of the bokashi bran. The anaerobic bacteria kind of pickle the food scraps making them less attractive to pests but it also makes them really fast at breaking down. What I Love: - The buckets are much bigger than the kit I had before. I have the buckets inside next to the kitchen to top bucket is being filled whilst the bottom bucket is fermenting/pickling for 4 weeks. The bigger size means that much more food scraps can go into the container and I'm not filling up so fast whilst the other bucket it full. - The lids are easy to open and are flexible. Bokashi needs a low air/low oxygen environment for the anaerobic bacteria to work best so a well fitting lid is a must but the lid needs to be used friendly to be able to take off to add food scraps. - Easy to clean. The parts are easy to take apart to wash with hot soapy water. - The buckets have handles that are comfortable to hold when they are full. - The containers have a false bottom that allows water and liquids to fall through and not the food scraps so the spigot doesn't get clogged up. - The bokashi juice or leachate is easy to harvest using the spigot. - There's no smell. I have 5 dogs and my Irish wolfhound cross is very smell orientated and would get into the compost container at every opportunity. Not with these! They are on the floor in a high traffic area and he's not interested! - You get 2.2 gallons of the bokashi bran in this kit which is so much more than I expected to get. How I Use Bokashi I add the leachate from the composter by diluting about 1/2 cup to 3 gallons of water and use in my vegetable garden. I add 1/4 cup of leachate to a 1 gallon mixture of water, Neem oil, fish emulsion, kelp, and a touch of Castile soap to make a spray for my fruit trees and other plants in the vegetable garden. Dilute 1 cup leachate to 3 gallons of water and use to water a dry compost pile after turning. Works as a great compost activator. I leave the full bucket to ferment for 2-4 weeks then I empty it. This part can be smelly and messy. I mostly use the treated food scraps by turning my compost so that I have the top half now on the bottom against the ground. Then I empty the bokashi into the middle of that pile. Next I add the bottom of the compost over the bokashi food scraps so the bottom of the compost is now the top. I water everything with the diluted bokashi leachate and leave it for about 2 weeks. The compost will heat up fast so I turn everything again and I usually have a good amount of compost I can take and use around the garden. This also is good to add to a trench compost where you bury the treated bokashi food scraps and it will break down in about 2-4 weeks. It is a little acidic so works great near those acid loving plants. Since we have wood burning fireplaces to heat, the bokashi helps to rebalance our compost with the higher pH from wood ash/lime. I would recommend this to a friend and I would even get another set so that I can compost more in winter when everything is frozen solid outside. Improvements If I could ask the manufacturer to make an improvement it would be that the bokashi bran is OMRI listed or able to be used in organic farming. Bokashi is a great way to use more food scraps in the garden and on the farm so having options that work for organic practices would be great.

It works. You can put *everything* in it. It constantly produce a very easy to use, "ready-made" liquid fertilizer. It keeps the mold out of your compost (too much mold is not good to have around, for plants or people). I've had compost turn incredibly toxic with mold, whereas this is a controlled fermentation - I almost think of my bokashi bucket as a "pet" and look forward to feeding it. It doesn't really smell bad (kind of a sweet pickle smell, if all is going well). You can keep it inside or outside (I would advise a cool, shady spot if outside). Here's something to consider: you can make both the special "draining bucket" and the bokashi probiotic mix yourself. (Look it up online for tutorials, if you would like to save some money.) However, if you need a quick compost solution, you can just buy this kit, or better yet *two*, so that when one fills up and needs 2 weeks to sit and "finish," you can leave it alone and use the other one. It's just a brilliantly simple and easy composting solution. I actually have space for a "real" composting operation, but I prefer this. An extra and unexpected bonus found in the instructions: you can add this to your cat litter. I was pretty skeptical, because I live in a very damp/humid climate that tends to encourage litter odors, but it really did help. Huge difference. * * * Edit 04/22/16: Just wanted to add that I still find this solution to be a very good and easy one. Plants seem to love the stuff. You DO have to follow all instructions to the letter to get the best results (don't mix already rotting food into your bokashi, stir and layer well, press down and cover with paper plate or a piece of cardboard). I have had a couple batches go "bad" on me because I tried composting already rotten scraps. Otherwise it works like a charm. Compost can be a very nasty business. I've worked with compost that made me dizzy and made my eyes sting. Bokashi, done right, comes out smelling slightly sweet, or bit vinegary. It really makes it a pleasure to work with, especially if you have allergies or are sensitive to strong odors.

Ok, so I want to be eco-friendly. Especially when it comes to food scraps/waste. Do you realize how much gets wasted nowadays?? Anyways, so I was hunting around and found this little composter. Awesome right? After a few uses I've found some tips, tricks, and pros & cons to this product.... Before we start....THIS IS NOT A TRUE COMPOSTER. It merely STARTS the composting process. You will still need to bury it in soil to get the benefits of your waste products. I will also tell you at the end how our home resolved this. Pros: Pickles the waste. Excellent for scraps, bones, leftovers that ARE NOT moldy, etc. Has a strainer for easy catch of the "bokashi tea" Has a spigot Comes with the bokashi bran Seals to prevent air from getting in Smell isn't horrendous, as long as you have used enough Bokashi bran Cons: NOT ENOUGH BOKASHI....We have a three member family and we definitely needed more bokashi. You're supposed to completely cover the scraps every time you throw stuff in there....that definitely adds up!! Bucket needs to be bigger. We found ourselves full within a couple of days. You need to make sure that the scraps are NOT sitting in the "tea" at the bottom, so make sure to drain every few days. Ok so tips: We used a square rock to press the food scraps against the bokashi bran, this means better contact, means it won't go bad. You are literally fermenting the scraps and they are prone to getting the nasties in there....be careful. Do NOT allow flies to get into the bokashi bucket, it's just one big buffet for them...AND THEIR BABIES....EEEKKK!!!! Buy another bucket...or two. One bucket needs to "pickle" while you use the other one for your scraps. And if you eat a lot of fresh food(like us) and only have one bucket, you're going to have a bad time. USE PLENTY OF BOKASHI....you can NEVER use too much. It should smell sweet and vinegary. If it smells bad and foul, it is. Dump it and start over. How we solved the burying in soil dilemma because we live in an apartment with a porch: We bought a big (huge) trash bin and alternated dirt, bokashi scraps, dirt, bokashi scraps, etc until it was full. Then we tossed some dirt on top. Now we will have very health soil come summer!! I would NOT recommend this product to someone who doesn't have access to outside/dirt. If you have a community garden plot, great!! If it's just you in your apartment with no time for something like this, you're going to have a bad time. OR consider donating it to the community garden plot, gardeners, public gardens, etc. All in all this is a fun thing to do with your food wastes. It's eco-friendly, fairly easy to use, and smells WAYYYYY better than a worm composter. Plus it doesn't generate heat nor are there creepy crawly's in your house.... Happy Composting!! :)

I'm very happy with this composter. I live in an apartment and wanted to compost my food waste without smells or mess. This is the perfect solution! The additive goes a long way and really does control the smell, even when the lid is off to add waste. The bin also fits nicely under my sink so it is out of the way and discreet. As for the leaky nozzle, it only leaked a little for the first week but hasn't leaked since (maybe once the decomposition starts to happen, it sponges up more of the liquids?). Anyway, no issues. I keep a compost jar on my counter for veggie waste and once or twice a week when its full I empty it into my bokashi bin. I've been using it for about a month and the bin is just starting to be full enough to leave for the two-three weeks it needs to fully ferment before I use it. I'm excited to add this to my houseplants -- it has to be buried, so i will be doing some up-potting of my houseplants and adding this to the bottom of the new pots so that the anaerobic bacteria survive. Apartment permaculture for the win! 10/10 recommend NOTE: if this it too pricey, you could do a bokashi bin in a 5 gallon bucket using the Bokashi mix, which you can purchase separately for much less. A little goes a long way!

I am fresh to composting and after reading all the reviews I was a bit worried that it would produce smell even with the lid on but the result after a week's experiment is fine for me. I received this item 2 weeks ago and I started saving food scraps and trimmed stems from my potted plants and kept them frozen. When I have saved about 5 containers I thawed them and put them in the bin, made sure the food scraps were evenly and tightly spread in the bin, then covered them with bokashi. Then I used the pressing plate thingy to press the whole thing down a bit more and left the plate in and closed the lid. Then I left it indoor for a week at around 70 degrees (about 20 Celsius). During this week I didn't smell anything around the bin. If I put my nose close to the seam between the lid and the bin I could smell a bit of sweetness but not sure if that's from the inside or the plastic. I checked it yesterday by turning open the liquid outlet and there were a few drops of the "tea" coming out which should be a good sign according to what I read online. The tea didn't have a strong smell. Then today since I have saved another 5 containers of food scraps I opened the bin to put them in. The smell inside was a bit strange but not unbearable. It smelled a bit like fermented tofu if you have had them before or a bit like rice wine yeast, which I guess is because most of my food scraps were plant based. I didn't have any meat or diary in there so not sure how those would affect the smell. I did have egg shells in but I guess the amount of egg white on the shells is small enough to not make the smell too bad. I opened the bin outdoors on my patio so the smell didn't linger. If you have to open this indoors I would recommend have your windows open first.

I love the idea of composting, and wish I had a better success, and more space or house with yard for composting. I was worried about smell would leak out of the bucket but it was completely smell free as long as the lid was tight shut. Only time you'd smell is when you open the lid to put food waste in it. The strong smell will stay in a room for awhile if you do this indoor. I'd recommend to take the bucket outside when opening the bucket! I grow herb in planters and the "compost juice" was perfect for that. Unfortunately I had to stop because I had no place to dump the compost to turn that into rich soil. I was thinking about getting worm tray system as next step, but there is little space inside of my apartment to store multiple compost system under my kitchen counter. Then I had a MAJOR infestation of fruit flies- started out of the a small counter top bucket (made by different company sold on Amazon) and flies have migrated to drains and my house plants. Again, it was NOT because of this bokashi bucket. It was the small bucket was to keep the food (no meat) scraps for a few days in the small bucket before placing them in the bokashi composting bucket. I almost gagged when I came home and saw literally hundreds of dead flies in my coffee cup, and made me very mad because there were some in my cat's water bowl. Now more than a week passed after cleaning both compost out of the buckets, I still get tons of dead flies in the trap I set to drown those annoying flies to death. I have chores "everyday" now----clean-out the fly traps, pure bleach and hot water into every drain in my apartment when I come back from work , wipe any water spills before I go to bed to make sure there is nothing those suckers can infest in, set fresh traps again & take garbage out to community dumpster before I go to work! I still get new batch of dead flies everyday. I hate bugs and It's been a horrible experience for me. It's slowly getting under control, but I have to do all that cleaning to bring my apartment back to normal. I ended up ordering a carnivorous plants to battle those annoying bugs. I know I will get a joy out of feeding those suckers to my plants once they arrive. <<Conclusion>> The bokashi compost is fun and a great way to turn kitchen waste to soil...if you have a house with an extra space, outside faucet to clean or stir the bucket. Also, you need a yard or next step compost system in order to get rich soil. If you can find reviews by someone who succeeded in doing this in their small apartment space, then please disregard my review. Again, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE PRODUCT (Including BOKASHI). I believe it's a wonderful system and great for environment when handled correctly! I had to give up due to my lack of knowledge (which led to fly infestation) as well as little space. It was pricey lesson for me...I ended up purchasing bleach and chemicals to cleanup (I am usually against using any strong chemicals around my place), exotic carnivorous plants on top of buying those compost buckets. I used the bucket with smelly compost in for weeks and used up about half of the bokashi, so I guess I will not be able to to get a refund.....

I find this unit to be indispensable for use around the home, all of the kitchen scraps from cooking are easily contained within this unit and I have had absolutely no issues with smell! The unit seals very effectively and it has produced a very high quantity of 'tea'.

OK, it works, but who came up with such a POOR DESIGN? 1. The lid fits tight, like it should to keep the odor in, but it pulls off with a lot of work. Then the moisture drips off the lid unto the kitchen floor. Tab should be larger in both length & width to be able to peel it back to remove the lid. Better yet, a screw-on lid like on my 7 gal round whole wheat berry buckets that keep the berries sealed away from the atmosphere. 2. You need a small container to fit in the small recess to drain the liquid out, not a round measuring cup, another reason for a round bucket. Maybe SCD Probiotics should include a square cup with a handle that fits? We have to find something to use because none of our measuring cups fit. I had set the bucket up on the kitchen counter & used a small cup, as we had not followed the instructions to empty often, as this was our first time, and drained out about 12 oz. off. It is only about a 1/3 full so far. I'm thinking of making a wooden handle for the lid supported from the underside with aluminum or nylon fender washers & SS screws to afford easier removal. I consider this item difficult to use and not worth the work to recycle our plant waste two times a day. We prefer to live healthy and eat vegan. Where we live, we get about a 100 inches of rain a year and outdoor compost bins don't work well because they don't reach the high temperatures needed to compost. They do compost in time, a year? So, composting in the kitchen & then dumping it into the outdoor bin sounds like a solution. Can't go outdoors & bury the waste, it's wet.

Works well.

They said it does'nt smeel while you compost your waste and it's right But when you empty that thing... you'll probably got sick of the stench. Really !! I build my compost bin outside and use this contener as a garbage bin sheshhh...

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