Natural Living Des Moines

Happy Farmer™ Kitchen Composter with Bokashi

My first compost bin! Makes me feel like a grown up greenie rather than the baby one I really am. After much research I decided on the Happy Farmer™ Kitchen Composter with Bokashi additive and so far, I love it! Its a recycled plastic bin with spigot and a bag of Bokashi (a dry breadcrumb texture additive).

Its much larger than I expected taking up almost all the height and 1/3 the width of my undersink cupboard space (official dimensions: 16″h x 10″w x 10″d). The idea of this composter is that you place all cut-up food scraps including chicken bones and meat (I have only done fruit, veggie and bread scraps so far) into the bin and cover it with a layer of Bokashi inoculant. Once the bin is full, keep it closed for 2 weeks and voila you have a fermented product that can be added directly to your garden or into an outdoor compost bin for further decomposition without attracting critters to a free dinner.

You may be asking, how does it smell? Well, when the bin is open there is a strong, mildly unpleasant smell, but when the bin is closed I don’t smell anything at all. It seems to me that I don’t smell the food spoiling, what I smell is the Bokashi. Its kind of a beer/yeast odor.

There is also a spout on the bottom which allows you to drain a rich liquid fertilizer that I’ve been using on my house plants, and they’ve never looked healthier. The documentation says to drain every couple days, I tend to forget and only drain once a week or so, and still its only about 1-2 tablespoons of liquid. I dilute this in a gallon of water which must be used immediately.

Today I opened up my compost after its two-week hibernation. All the food is black, but you can still kind of tell what everything is, its not a soil substance like you find in an outdoor compost bin. The top has some white mold, but the documentation says thats normal (black mold is not okay).

The cost is a little less than a manufactured outdoor unit as well. I purchased mine for about $45 at Sustainable Community Development out of Kansas City, Missouri. I was concerned that the Bokashi wouldn’t last long but its been a couple months and I think I’ve used less than 1/4 of the bag.

The verdict for me? I like it. I really like the convenience of having the bin directly under my sink and I think I will appreciate it even more when winter arrives. I debated long and hard between this system and a traditional manufactured yard compost bin and decided to go with the Happy Farmer for its convenience and I think that was a good decision for me. So, this batch will go into our yard waste pile (open air) until we’re ready to work it into our garden for next year.

For more information, go here: http://www.scdworld.com/product.cfm?product_id=030212