Last updated on October 23rd, 2023 at 08:34 pm
The season is beginning, our composters are still filled with the cuttings and leftovers from the fall. The material has settled, shrunk to a respectable size and will soon begin to rot. At the same time, with the onset of spring, the good gardener is getting down to business and wants to fertilize his plants. Preferably, of course, with compost, which you now want to get as soon as possible. But compost accelerators have disadvantages.
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Compost accelerator – What it promises.
There are them in every hardware store and garden center: The compost accelerators. The indication is that you should fill 10-20 cm thick green and brown material into the composter. Following this, a thin layer of compost accelerator is sprinkled to help soil form more quickly from the scraps.
In and of itself, this assistance is optimal, because there is always a lot of kitchen and garden waste, and such a garbage can fills up extremely quickly. So, in theory, you do not need to buy or build a total of 3 composters.
Here you will learn whether I think composters are useful at all.
Compost accelerators have disadvantages
My experience with compost accelerator is not a very good one: I bought a simple variety, not organic quality, and applied a total of once last spring. After only a few days, when I opened the composter, droves of large, black flies buzzed towards me. At first I thought they flew over from the neighbor, because he has cows. However, thanks to a quick research on the Internet, I came to the conclusion that compost accelerator often triggers this phenomenon.
I don’t know about you, but I hate flies, especially when they then move into the house and I find pupated larvae everywhere! Yikes!
This accelerator is now in our carport – anyone interested? I’ll give it to you as a gift if you are Best Buddies with flies!
Compost accelerator with Effective Microorganisms.
Accordingly, I no longer use a compost accelerator because once is enough and have been looking for an alternative: I water my compost pile with effective microorganisms (EM). The manufacturer’s instructions say to mix 1 liter of EM active (EMa) with 10 liters of water 5 times a year, per cubic meter of compost, and pour it on the compost. In my case, that means mixing 250 ml of EMa with 2.5 liters of water.
My experience with Effective Microorganisms
Since we just started (and still continue) our garden and I used the tree and hedge cuttings for my raised bed, we mainly have kitchen waste from 4 (5) people. Due to the fact that we do not have a really good mixture of plant residues, there have always been a lot of fruit flies in our composter, which have the perfect basis for reproduction in this environment.
Within 2 days of me watering the compost pile, there hasn’t been a fruit fly buzzing around. So I can confidently dump my organic waste in there even in the summer without having to pull my head away first and wait a few seconds.
I’ve done this 3 times so far: my compost pile doesn’t stink and the flies have moved out. In doing so, I don’t stick to the 5 times a year rule, but put on a new mix when fruit flies bother me again. Likewise, I feel that soil forms much faster now than before.
Bokashi in the composter
Compost accelerators have disadvantages – I have already mentioned that. That’s why a replacement was needed: Another compost accelerator that works with the help of effective microorganisms is Bokashi. In this process, kitchen waste and food scraps are fermented and then buried directly on site as fertilizer. The fermentation takes place in the Bokashi bucket*.
After 2 weeks the result is ready and the Bokashi can also be put into the composter. Due to the fact that the food scraps are so heavily processed, they rot within a few weeks. That is nevertheless times the really unbeaten compost accelerator.