Spring Garden Boost: Using Bokashi to Feed Your Soil
Spring is here, the first rains are on their way, and Gauteng gardeners are itching to plant. Before the seedlings go in, give some attention to what really drives a thriving garden: the soil.
Healthy soil is alive with microbes, worms and organic matter that feed your plants and hold onto water. Bokashi gives you three easy ways to build that life, using nothing more than your kitchen scraps.
1. Prepare your beds with bokashi pre-compost
The best spring boost is a bucket of fermented pre-compost dug into your beds a few weeks before you plant.
- Dig a trench along the bed you plan to plant.
- Empty in your bokashi pre-compost and mix it with some of the soil.
- Cover it well with the rest of the soil.
- Give it two to three weeks. In that time, most of it will have broken down into rich, dark soil full of nutrients and microbes.
- Plant into the improved soil.
Pre-compost is acidic when it first goes into the ground, so let it break down before planting directly on top of it. If you’re planting sooner, dig the trench alongside your new seedlings rather than underneath them.
2. Feed growing plants with bokashi tea
The liquid you drain from your bokashi bucket is a concentrated organic plant food. Once your seedlings are in, use it to keep them growing strongly through spring and summer.
- Dilute it at about a cup of bokashi tea in a 25-litre bucket of water.
- Pour it around the roots, not over the leaves.
- Use it fresh. Drain your bucket once or twice a week, and use the tea soon after.
As a bonus, a cup of bokashi tea mixed with two litres of water makes a rooting solution for tree cuttings. Stand the cuttings in it, and roots should start forming within about five days.
3. Sprinkle bran around new seedlings
Bokashi Bran® isn’t only for your kitchen bucket. Sprinkled straight onto the soil, it adds beneficial microbes where your plants need them.
Our founder, Bronwyn, discovered another benefit in her own vegetable garden. After trying every home remedy to get rid of ants, from garlic to pepper and curry powder, she sprinkled Bokashi Bran® into the ant holes. The ants left, and whatever had been eating her spinach disappeared too. Sprinkling a little bran around new seedlings works well to help keep pests away.
Start building better soil today
Every bucket of kitchen scraps you ferment now is food for your garden in a few weeks. Not yet using bokashi? Our beginner’s guide shows you how to start, and our kits have everything you need.
Questions? Email info@bokashibran.co.za or call 082 456 9225.