Talking Bokashi

"Go on," my friend said, "ask her." My friend's friend rolled his eyes but obediently asked me what I'm doing with all my buckets.

"...Bokashi? What's that?"

"Two-stage composting," I answered.

He nodded, said that he didn't garden, and the conversation moved on.

Argh!

In the six months or so since I began this blog--and started talking about my microherding adventures--that exchange has happened more than a few times. Bokashi? Oh, um, sounds...interesting. Hey, how about those Cowboys?

I've tried other answers, none any more satisfying; some of my half-correct definitions are more engagingly phrased than others, depending on the audience, but none of them really work yet.

Bokashi?

...Pickled compost, sort of... Um, yeah. Next?


...making plant food out of leftover people-food--hey, wait, come back! I wasn't finished...


...The urban answer to composting.

That one gets a decent response, though only from gardeners. People who know about different sorts of composting ask questions about advantages, costs, or procedure; the ones who know only that composting is something they ought to be doing ask about costs and learning curves; those who've chosen other routes...well, you get the idea.

It's the non-gardeners I can't reach with that response (or any other). "Recycling food" just sounds wrong; I won't even try. Ditto "on-site waste handling"! So how do you talk to the basic non-gardening urbanite about bokashi?

Or rather, how do I convince them to give it a try?