I was having an after-lunch banana at the Londolozi staff canteen in January this year when Chris Goodman shouted over: “Ryan, come and throw your peel into my Bokashi bin.” Now I have to admit that I had to think carefully about that command, but Chris is quite a ‘solid oke’ so I went over to have a look at what he was doing.
As well as being Londolozi’s land manager, Chris is the guy who started the guerilla gardening revolution at Londolozi. He has also installed a number of solar geysers (powering hot water for 80 of Londolozi’s staff members) and runs the two beehives that are kept at the back of the staff village. In fact, it’s safe to say that Chris is one of the individuals at the forefront of Londolozi’s sustainability vision.
As I arrived at where Chris was standing, he had just finished scraping his left-over salad into a medium-sized black bin, and gestured for me to chuck in my banana peel.
“Your banana peel is going to feed my new garden” Chris declared, as he sprinkled a handful of what looked like All-Bran on top of the food waste. “But first it must ferment for two weeks in this Japanese-invented Bokashi bin.”
With my banana peel added to the day’s collection of organic waste, Chris stands proudly over the future of his vegetable garden.
Bokashi is wheat-bran fortified with a mix of probiotic bacteria, yeast and fungi. Developed in the 1980s in Japan, Bokashi is now globally used for the management of food waste. In general, to make Bokashi, you need a carrier (bran), molasses, water and the mix of EM (effective micro-organisms. Each time food waste is add to the Bokashi Bin, a handful of Bokashi is sprinkled over the top.
Two weeks later I met up with Chris again and asked after the well-being of my banana peel. During the time that the waste had been fermenting, Chris had been tapping off the Bokashi liquid, diluting it, and then using it as a plant food, so we had already got some good use out of the banana, but there was more to come.
“The Bokashi lid is ready to come off” said Chris. “The food has been digested, and is ready for stage two.”
The fermented organic matter (including my banana peel) was tipped straight into a hole in Chris’s vegetable garden, where it was covered with about 15cm of soil and left for a further two weeks. The mixture breaks down into a rich fertilizer, which can be dug up within 7 to 14 days, depending on the climate.
After digging a hole in his vegetable garden, Chris tips in the organic fermented waste and leaves it there for 14 days. He then digs it up and uses it as compost.
A group of us at Londolozi have started sampling Chris’s vegetables and recently when Executive Chef, Anna Ridgewell, ran out of vine-tomatoes, a handful of plum specimens from Chris’s zen-powered garden were called upon for service.
A clump of banana fed vine tomatoes in Chris Goodman’s Londolozi garden.
So there you have it. From the staff canteen, to Chris’s vegetable garden, to Londolozi’s signature grilled Pemba Bay Kabeljou garnished with vine tomatoes roasted with crushed garlic and a touch of chili.
The amazing journey of a Londolozi banana peel.
Couldn’t think of a better journey for your banana peel–at least it got to stay in Londolozi!
I agree Arden. We’ll be on the look out for suspect looking giant banana peels 😉
Thanks Ryan. It seems that Chris has it all sorted, but thought I’d tell you that cut up banana peels break down a lot quicker than left whole, so maybe it would speed up his process. That’s what I do before putting it my compie bins 🙂 that sounded like a nice piece of fish – yum! Sure it was enjoyed by all.
Hi Wendy. I actually had a follow-up conversation with Chris yesterday and he said, “You know Ryan, everything is working a lot better now that I am cutting up my waste.” 🙂 Thanks so much for the feedback – Anna’s kabeljou was delicious!
Thanks for the post Ryan. It is amazing to see what we can do with waste. Well done to Chris with the progress he has made on his vegetable garden.