Waste-Water is the best method if you don’t want a lot of work.  Because it emptied the best it means the soil does not accumulate as fast so you don’t have to empty it as often.  Plus you can add more waste each time you top it up because there is more room.  Which means you don’t need as many pots – unless you choose to have more pots to nourish more parts of your garden. You do need to consider the odour in this method if you soak your scraps for a long time like I do.  And, because some things go off quicker than others.  Like cat food. (Stinky Stuff).

The odour can be like Bokashi Spray depending on what scraps you put in your container and how often you empty your scraps.  So you need an airtight container with a good seal.  Empty your scraps if the odour gets unbearable or add more waste water to dilute the odour.  There was very little odour in this experiment. This might be because I added fresh water as opposed to wastewater.  It would require another experiment to ascertain if the type of water made the contents smell more or less.  An experiment for another day perhaps.  This is still my preferred method for fast composting.

Bokashi Bran seems to be the best method if you want to accumulate soil for use in other parts of your garden or perhaps pot plant containers or above ground garden beds. This of course means you would have to empty your pots more often as they would fill up with soil faster than the other methods.  This will suit a lot of people who want to continually harvest the soil. It could potentially mean you need more pots if you are not very consistent with emptying them.

But more pots is a good thing.  It means you are nourishing more parts of your garden.  And if you used Bokashi Bran in my Above Ground Method you could potentially create more soil than it already does.  Thus you will always have soil for your pot plants or raised garden beds without the need for large bay composters or tumblers.  It’s up to you of course.

Bokashi Bran and Water would be my next choice. Adding the water will help keep the contents moist and make it easier to empty the contents into a Compot.  However it appears there is no other real advantage using this method as opposed to just using the Bran with no water added.  One advantage with the Bran is that it did not smell like the Bokashi Spray smelt. That is a definite bonus.

Bokashi Spray would be my next choice but in all honesty the smell was quite putrid.  However if you used the spray and left the meat out the odour would be considerably less.  You do have the advantage of collecting juices with this method but if you don’t drain off the juices you will potentially have a very smelly waste container.

I personally don’t have time to fiddle with collecting juices to use in the garden.  I tend to use the composted soil to make fertiliser by putting a handful in a bucket of water and pouring this mix back onto the garden or the lawn as a natural fertiliser.  This I can do whenever I feel like it, rather than the odour dictating when I need to collect the juices.  But it is up to you to do what you prefer.

Alternatively you could use the Bokashi container with waste water and either drain off the juices as you like or don’t drain off the juices.  If you don’t drain the juices this method would then be the same as Pot 4 with Waste Water.  If you have a Bokashi Bucket you can try both methods to see which one you prefer and you still get to put your Bokashi Bucket to good use.

No Additives I have chosen as the last choice. This is a great method for people who have worms in their pots or worm farms, and generally only collect worm friendly food.  Most people would not let the waste sit for 3 weeks on their kitchen bench. They would empty it more regularly on a daily or weekly basis and they would not put in any meat products.  This method works well in raised garden beds that are relatively inaccessible to vermin.

Usually, if you put fresh waste (especially meat) inside your Compots you will attract vermin.  I never recommend this method for that reason.  I was lucky with this experiment.

I did have meat in this container but I am taking an educated guess that the waste had fermented over the three week period as it broke down.  Because it fermented, I am assuming this is what detered the vermin.   This is why I always recommend that your waste be soaked in water to ferment it.

As a general rule the vermin don’t like the fermentation smell. There is nothing edible in the pots for them to eat but stinky fermented waste.  Unless of course you haven’t fermented the waste enough and they come for the waste but find a smorgesboard of Soldier Fly Larvae and food scraps.  Something to consider if you are only useing worm friendly waste.  Rats love worms too.

The other reason why I don’t recommend the method of not adding any additives (though clearly it is do-able over a three week period) is because worms love meat.  But they overeat meat and it kills them.  Ideally if you are going to use this method without any additives just leave out the meat or any product associated with meat. 

As you can see over a three week period it worked just as well as the other 4 methods.  There is no reason why you can’t do this but without the meat. If you don’t attract the Soldier Flies to your pots (and are using worms only) it will take longer to break down unless you chop the waste into smaller bits or blend it in a blender.  Two things I could not be bothered doing.  But if you have the time it is still a very good method to use -without the meat.