Please share if you have know of the Bokashi method and what you think. ruclips.net/video/-kFnnR79lQY/видео.html ruclips.net/video/0k3PTUnDHSI/видео.html
I bought one this around Christmas time last year for reduce my kitchen scrap and the odour free. My family likes seafood. The shells can be very bad smell if you don’t take out right away. And after in green bin one week, the smell very bad. So we only eat seafood on the weekend, because Monday is garbage day. Having this machine now we can eat seafood anytime we want. The machine drys and compress the waste very well. After 6 months use this machine, we only got less than 10lbs dry waste. It is works grate! I mix the waste with 80% soil and leave it in container to fermentation for next year to use. Looking forward Organic fertilizer.
It’s a shame the odor filters are not reusable and become a continuous operating expense, kind of ironic that a product meant to reduce landfill waste makes it’s own separate waste.
I live in Winnipeg (winters get to -40c) so no composting from October to April. I got a machine like this to dehydrate what I normally would compost during winter and plan to mix it in my compost bin when the weather warms. Cheers
I agree with you 100%, put it in the regular compost bin to finish composting or deep in the dirt in the Spring before planting or spread it on the top of the dirt in the winter, all for all, don't use it directly after it come out of the machine, it is not a finished product, it will burn the plants.
Bravo! I have been doing composting since the 80s and could not understand how an electronic composter could really make "quality" soil! Dehydration is NOT composting! There is so much involved in making real compost, obviously those that invented these "eco-friendly" devices, that use up lots of electricity to use, know nothing about true composting. Thank you for this video!
Thank you for posting your experiment; recently seeing adverts for this equipment, and was wondering how it compared to a “worm-bin”. The bin I have in my kitchen doesn’t smell, and the worms do a great job with my kitchen scraps. I will stick with Mama Nature and my worm bin.
This was the exact video I've been looking for. Ever since the Lomi and other "home composters" have been taking over my social media ads for the past 2 yrs, I've regularly said myself "that isn't real compost". I haven't seen anything mentioning the beneficial microbes that are present in real compost that takes weeks to a month to create. It's exactly what you said, dried up material. Now, I guess I could probably add this to my REAL compost bin to substitute for the browns, but putting this straight on my plants? Nope.
Thank you for this. I am very surprised that there was no sprouting at all from the pot of 100% kitchen scraps. I would have expected something because even a damp paper towel will give you sprouts. From all of your results it appears that the scraps actually inhibit sprouting.
This is a great reality check. I wonder if it's OK to put into my regular Compost Bin, though. Maybe it will just speed up the normal process in there.
I live in New England and have been composting for over 10 years, but with cold winters and lots of trees blocking the sunlight, my compost bins barely made any compost; about 6 inches of compost created in 3 foot high bins in over 7 years. I gave the bins to a friend and now have been putting my Foodcycler end-product into a 6 gallon metal trashcan, along with some water and natural compost acceleratant granules. I have the metal can in the sun to break down quicker (it doesn't smell), and my plan is to wait at least a month before I mix it with soil from a nursery, in a 20/80% ratio. Then I will add it to my garden as about 2 inches of top soil.
Thank you! I was thinking about purchasing something like this but decided to do my research. Your findings make good sense and although I'm in a tiny intercity apartment this is definitely not going to help. I'm glad that I happened upon this video.
i don't have a food cycler, but i have a dehydrator so i'm gonna conduct an experiment of my own, i'm gonna save up orange peelings, grape stems, and i'm dehydrate them along with beans and as a control i will just shred up the peelings and stems and try and experiment like what you're doing in this video, thanks for posting this and getting the gears in my mind turning👍👍
I had my doubts about the material when I first saw videos on these machines as you talk about. Great experiments, they prove what you are saying. My compliments. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada🍁
Thank you for testing. I have been wondering about it. I do Bokashi composing for my food waste and also I am waithing for this machine that I have ordered. Now, I got the idea for solution. I will continue Bokashi but after machine cycle, then it shorten the time of composing. I put Bokashi and food mix into pots and cover with soil a few months. But it probably takes much less time if I use both.
Thank you so much for teaching me that word! My mother is Japanese and doesn’t speak very technical English well. We just called it “take it to the back garden”. My mom had a year round garden and she alternated the area she grew each year. Some plants would always be in certain places but we would always add “stuff” around those areas along with using the different side of the yard. Since we lived in the city we had a big garden area of the yard compared to most people…apx 100’ x60’ less where the the fruit trees were.
The manufacturer of Nagual contacted me and said the following: "First of all, the electronic composter's end product is highly concentrated nutrients and may burn the plant if not handle properly. 1. the plants that you use in the video are way too little while the compost are way too much in ratio. 2. the compost should stay away from plants' roots 3. compost should only touches soils, not plants. " My Response: 1) no compost is high in nutrients - even well made compost has an NPK of less then 1-1-1. The nutrients in the dried kitchen scraps produced here have almost no plant available nutrients. The company does not understand what plant "nutrients" are. 2) What good is compost if you can't put it near plants? The problem here is that the material produced is not compost - which is the conclusion in the video. 3) I agree with their suggestion - don't put it near plants.
To be fair, though, they recommended a 10% mixture. Your lightest was already 2.5x that, so I'm not sure that this was really a good test. I suspect that 10% is simply a small enough number to not affect the results materially, so that's how they landed on it as a recommendation but, without deeper knowledge of plant nutrition, it would be reasonable for a viewer to see this video and just call, "user error". From an educational standpoint, it would have been best to have at least included their recommended ratio and also to explain that plants can't eat larger molecules like proteins.
So there’s one called Lomi and the express mode is 3-5 hours and it says not to use as compost but then they have a grow mode and it goes for 16hrs and that’s what you can use with plants. I’d love to see how this one goes up against an experiment like this.
I have asked to review their product, but did not hear from them. A year ago they did say they had no scientific study to show their product made compost.
@@Gardenfundamentals1 I'm also curious about the Lomi Grow cycle and end product. They provide tablets that contain bacteria and fungi to speed up the composting process and it runs 16 to 20 hours. Then they say to only use 10% compost in our dirt mixture. They said compost made with these tablets resulted in more plant growth than with compost made without the tablets.
@@suzanneb6608 since the product still has to be mixed in to normal soil in small amounts unlike actual compost I suspect that the pods may be providing some fertilizer along with the stuff they say it contains so that it benefits the plants, offsetting the toxicity of the non-composted plant material. Scientific analysis is needed to reveal what’s in their tablets.
Thank you so much for this video, that’s how I find you. I seen one video of a electric compost and I was amazing of it but I was skeptical because it did it only in a couple hours , so I need some more research about it and this video made up my mind going to stick with natural compost , going to buy a Tumblr now thank you 😊
Very informative. I learned that the machine is expensive dehydrator, no an actual composter. Really the dehydrated material would be great to store over the winter and place in the composter in the spring. But my dollar store bin with a tight seal lid does the trick. Thanks for extinguishing the urge to buy something I thought that’s was actually productive but really cant replace my 2$ compost holder. Thanks. Excellent video
I just reviewed the nagual on my channel and pretty much concluded the same thing. what you get is dead matter that takes less room. but you used electricity to make it and quite frankly, I don t see how one "saves" the environment while the other destroys it, it kind of cancels the whole thing out. They are acting in their response to you as though the by product is pure manure, which we all know not to put directly onto the plant roots because, yes it will burn them. But that is not what comes out of the machine. Composting requires moisture, hence the reason why you have to wet it once in a while. this machine takes the moisture out, all of it. It kills everything beneficial and there is no way it acts as though a time machine by bypassing the entire composting process. It's just an exaggeration and a marketing gimmick appealing to some folks who want to feel good about themselves and will invest $500 for that purpose. so now a machine was manufactured - carbon emission, transported, carbon emission, used, carbon emission for the sole purpose of reducing two banana peels and half an apple into dead matter. Because "go Green" - give me a break! Thank God I have a brain! Thank you for your video.
These machines do have limited usefulness. I would always take my kitchen scraps, run them through a chipper to increase the surface area and the rate at which they can be composted, and throw them in my compost bin. However that is somewhat laborious and messy for our relatively small working space. And because of that, food scraps tend to pile up and sit for a while between periods where I can process them. I got the Vitamix FoodCycler and it basically just replaces the step of me running my scraps through the chipper, and it's convenient to do more often. And the key is: the end result still goes in the compost bin with everything else. I appreciate Vitamix for NOT claiming to be a composter, the word compost cannot even be found in the manual or on their website. (Although their marketing that it turns food scraps into 'fertilizer' is questionable, and as incomplete). Their manual does say that to be use the dehydrated food product as fertilizer it should be 1-4 weeks before planting. As you've brought out, that still doesn't quite tell the whole story. But I feel that if you understand the principles of composting, it can augment your composting process depending on your use case. Is that worth $500 to accomplish that? I'd say no, I only have one because I found it on offerup for half the price new. Using an old blender or garbage disposal may accomplish the same thing minus dehydration, just messier. But in any event, it is definitely wrong for any of these products to advertise themselves as "composters", the end result will always need it's own composting.
I have an Idoo Garbo and I figured out after the first time using it that it wasn't compost but dehydrated scraps. What I'm thinking of doing is maybe feeding some to my worms and putting the excess into my Bokashi composter. The inoculant should help ferment it into real compost. I hope I don't kill my worms 🤔😒
Thank you for this! I have one of these and I was suspicious about the advice of sprinkling it on my houseplants, it didn’t make much sense to me. I’m glad it removes food scraps from the local landfill though and I’d be super interested in your new book on composting as I have your pond gardening book which has been very helpful.
Thank you for this. I am very surprised that there was no sprouting at all from the pot of 100% kitchen scraps. I would have expected something because even a damp paper towel will give you sprouts. From all of your results it appears that the scraps actually inhibit sprouting.
How does it remove food scraps from the local landfill? As far as I can tell the dry stuff needs to go to the same place it was destined to go before the machine spent a bunch of energy grinding and drying it; either the landfill or compost, and then it breaks down producing just as much methane as it would have unprocessed. I suppose if you burned the dry material in a wood stove that heated your place you would be saving the environment from the methane and avoid filling the landfill, but just like backyard composting that’s not an option for many folks, and it’s not advertised as a solution; they say to toss it.
@@SchwaAlien what I got out of watching all the videos was that whatever they had was much smaller. I couldn’t glean anything else about it except there’s a lot of people that think that’s a huge help for the planet…even though the machine runs on electricity for up to 20 hours to make “dirt” and will end up in the landfill one day too. Plus the machine is not biodegradable as far as I could tell.😂
I wonder if you grind it into a powder like it shows it supposed to do, it’ll decompose quickly IN the compost pile. Maybe use an old coffee grinder and then try? I’m not spending hundreds of dollars to find out. Looks like you could use an old dehydrator and then a coffee grinder and get better results.
Agreed... dehydrated kitchen scraps. I have the FC-50 and in general it's great for reducing the volume of waste and take away the "ick" factor from the organic waste bin. I live in an apartment so it's been a decent investment. The biggest issue I have is ensuring the waste is "balanced".. some times the grinding bucket gets stuck and the dehydrated material isn't really dry and has this weird hard caramel type consistency... not sure why - possibly because my partner like to fill above the line...and I keep saying to her - the line is there for a reason.... I give it to my friend for adding to the worm bin... which seems to be okay so far...
Great video - I keep getting ads for these countertop "composters" and I'm not a gardener or anything of the sort but even to me it was obvious that you can't make actual nutrient rich dirt compost in a few hours. I was thinking that there had to be some kind of additive or something to help the process along. I think you explain it rather well though. Dehydrated food. And like you said as soon as you give it moisture it's going to start decomposing for real and stink and become moldy. I still can't believe the companies that make this advertise it as "compost"!
When I watched the first video about this machine I thought then the it was too much faff and not worth the effort. This second video has not changed my mind. I agree that the only use for the scraps would be to add them to ones compost bin.
I read another composter instructions. It said use it after 3 or 4 weeks after mixing in with soil. Don’t plat right away. I guess it needs to absorb moisture first. Thanks interesting video.
3-4 weeks of stink because you’d have to rehydrate the dry material for it to actually compost, and then it does it’s thing just like normal unprocessed compost, so for great expense and environmental impact there’s no real advantage to combining a blender with a dehydrator for dealing with food scraps, unless you need to store it temporarily for practical reasons, then at least it makes some sense... but these kind of machines are notorious for breaking down, they aren’t a new idea - so is it really worth it? How long is the warranty?
@@SchwaAlien That’s a really good question! Answer: It has a 1 year limited warranty but you can buy a 3 year warranty for sale for $59 now vs $79 usual cost for the 3 year extended warranty…as of 9/15/2022 6:07pm PT
Actually..... that is exactly what Milorganite grass fertilizer is. Human sewage that has been dehydrated and broken down. My lawn LOVES it. Sooooo...... hopefully my plants like my Lomi compost too,
I have been composting off and on for over 40 years in a normal pile outside so I was extremely sceptical when they called dehydrated and chopped waste compost, it isn't that isn't the way things work.
This was a very helpful video in lowering expectations!!! Thank you for your experiment and advice. I do think the “composts” may still be very useful though. They can still help to minimize the amount of kitchen scraps we toss in landfills. Thanks again for the experiment. You seem very knowledgeable in gardening and your video was very refreshing to watch :)
If you toss kitchen scraps in the landfill you’ll still be tossing the output of the machine in the landfill and all you’ve done is remove the water at great energy expense. If it vaporized kitchen waste by sending the output of a giant capacitor bank through the material, I could understand the claims of actual waste reduction, but this is not much different than putting food scraps in an inexpensive dehydrator if you’re wanting to spend lots of energy reducing the weight of your waste...
I watched all the videos and think it’s a waste of electricity. Plus the machine itself will end up in the landfill one day too. In addition you have to clean the bucket with water. Any vegetable and fruit going to the landfill will decomposes and there’s no electricity or additional water that would be used. Just my thoughts after I watched all of their videos. Happy gardening!👍💖🌼
I have the Vitamix eco 5 and it does grind it up like it’s supposed to be. I then mix it with large amounts of soil and water it for a week to let it compost. It’s very hot for sure and I’ve found about a tablespoon per gallon works well if it hasn’t been in a composter for a week first. Thought the grind on your ,aching is very lackluster so that may not be the case for you.
update: i used my dehydrator on all my food scraps for a 48 hour period, and that turned everything into a fine powder, i'm glad i came across this video, because i was considering the vitamix food cycler, but when i conducted my experiment with my dehydrator, i'm happy with the results.
@@PurpleFlowersPath it started out growing good but then like the video said, the soil started to smell bad, and i think it killed the plants, and like he said in the video, something like that should be for outdoor use, because it stunk my tent up bad, and the recommended temperature for my dehydrator was 135, maybe you might have better luck with yours
I have yet to buy a bag for it or change the filter I clean it with a little brush and only run it when full which is once a week. I’m disabled so burying my food waste for me isn’t feasible so I use this and then just toss it out on my grass or plants. My dog likes the smell of it and actually eats a lot of it I’ve noticed. The smell usually is of roasted veggies 🥕 i don’t like the price point and know real composting would be better but since I’m disabled and can’t always go outside in my wheelchair nor can I dig a compost heap this is what I use. I wish I could put a solar adapter to make it run more efficiently
I have one and it works beautifully to reduce my waste. There are two grow modes that they claim can work in your garden. The first is a 3-5 hour process. The matter is reduced by about 80% and is very dry, but not nearly as lumpy in this video. The waste, they advise, is good for the trash, the green bin, or to go in one's compost. They do not advise it to be used in plants before further composting. The second mode is what they call the grow mode which is a 16-20 hour process. This comes out like light and fluffy dirt. This, they say, you can use directly on your your plants or in the soil. However, they clearly state that the ratio should be 1:10 ( One cup 'compost' and 10 cups soil) which is significantly less than what you show here. I have no real way of telling how much it may help as I use the short mode and then add to my compost bin. I imagine I will be using this when I do my planting later in the spring. We'll see how that works.
I have been reading you Garden Myths for years now and so glad to also now find you on RUclips. I use Oklin electric composters for larger scale composting and love them, they breakdown and dehydrate a lot of material very quickly. It saves a lot of energy and effort moving it around, so I think there is definitely a place for these, especially in large cities.
I think that maybe after using the kitchen composter to add it to your yard compost so it can be turned and rest like regular yard compost. For example you don't add the droppings from chickens or rabbits as soon as they dropped because that would burn the plants ... I don't get to garden often but I like it so I hope I'm right.
Hmmm I have a lomi and when i used the "plant setting" which is specific for placing in plants it was ground to comparable soil mixture. I by their instructions added a 1:10 compost to soil mixture for some corn i decided to grow and not a week later after I placed my kernels in the container(container growing corn) I have what appears to be all but maybe 1 kernal sprouting. ehh I'm pleased...
Thank you for this video. I have a question. I am a beginner gardener who rarely uses fertilizer because I’m afraid that I will burn my plants. It has always been my understanding that when starting seeds, one should never use fertilizer. Not for the first couple weeks after germination (until after it gets its true leaves). Isn’t that what this compost is when it comes out of the Lomi? I would be interested in seeing a similar control test based on using the compost on several young plants instead of seedlings.
Would it work better if you have a bucket and mix it with dirt and let it actually turn into compost first? I was hoping it would smell better and create less liquid sewage.
We'll done Sir, you provided your point. Food scraps is not a planting medium, it's a bio hazard! Lomi is an overpriced garbage dehydrator which is a total disaster!
Thanks! This was a very interesting video. Although I would love to see the same with basic outside dirt instead of your special growing mix, I don't want to buy something special and I'm interested in seeing if this improve the actual soil that's in tired garden's soil as would be actual compost...
I agree with you 100%! I watched ALL of their videos and I couldn’t understand how they could say they had “dirt” BUT they never said “compost”, that I caught at least. All I could make of their videos was mashing up and heating the scraps with bio plastics, something I’m not a fan in composting. I think that as adding chemicals of some kind. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s just my opinion. She did have a “pod” that supposedly has all the enzymes etc. needed for making soil or whatever they called that setting on the machine. Although I couldn’t understand how even good dirt could be made from that machine in 20 hours, which is their longest time setting. They had a lady a wearing a white lab jacket talking about what can or can’t be put into the machine. She never said anything about the process of composting or how to grow anything. I saw A LOT of people saying how great the machine was and how good it was for the planet. You can imagine how negative my post was. I basically said you can’t believe someone just because they’re wearing a white lab coat. People needed to use common sense vs listening to whatever they’re told. I deleted my post and saw this review. I was so glad too! I just see that someone is really great about how to market something for that type of person that needs to feel they are doing something good about global warming, carbon footprint, making waste into something useful etc. Maybe I’m just getting old and I don’t have the patience for people that think like that. Example: the machine needs electricity vs solar energy and it’s still going to end up in the landfill when it breaks or is no longer used. Even now I’m rolling my eyes thinking about those videos and all that WAS NOT said. My mom is Japanese and had a year round garden that we ate from 99.99% of the time. I don’t remember going to the grocery store unless it was on Thanksgiving and my mom wanted red radishes to makes roses to decorate the turkey platter with. Basically, after all my venting here, I thought the machine was being sold as something it’s not…making good dirt and was extremely expensive! This video was exactly what I needed to see to confirm my opinion about the machine. The other stuff was just my personal opinion about the people who probably never had a garden let alone a composting system of any kind. Happy gardening to you! 🌼💖🌼 Thank you for your patience if you read all of my post.
Too much organic material decomposing at once and your 'soil' more closely resembles a newly established and highly active compost-pile full of nitrogen rich material, which is great if you're intending to start a compost pile but terrible to grow anything in directly other than microbes. However, many seasoned gardeners know that burying kitchen scraps in the garden is highly beneficial for feeding the microbes present in the soil and improving soil fertility. Soil itself is basically mother natures digestive system. That's where everything goes eventually, even us... But you really can't grow anything in an active compost pile even if it is nestled down neatly into a small cup like this. Disappointing, I know. However, if you were to repeat this same experiment only using a common organic fertilizer like 'alfalfa meal' or Dr. Earth (in place of the dry kitchen scraps) you will get very similar results! But why? Too much organic decomposition = stinky anerobic mess that promotes plant pathogens. Don't over-fertilize and this problem is solved. The results of this experiment demonstrate the hazards of overfertilizing (with any organic fertilizer) and is to be expected. Try this for an experiment: Grind those dry scraps down into a homogenous powder and then disperse a very small amount (perhaps a teaspoon or so) per-gallon of fertigation water for a good starting application rate and then take things from there with the concentrations and compare to the controls. A little goes a long way. Remember, pelletized organic fertilizers take some time to break down as they nourish the soil food web more slowly, whereas a fine powdery material has far greater surface area contact with the soil and microbes- so it speeds up the colonization and decomposition of the material, thus less of it should be used than your typical pelletized organic amendments but should also be applied more often. Also, I think it would be better to run the experiment for a little longer to observe any long-term morphological changes taking place in the plants and changes in the soil or substrate as things develop. I suspect you will have more useful experimental results this way and be able to determine what the efficacious application of this fertilizer material is. Much depends on the biology of your soil to begin with, so seeding the substrate with some leaf mold or well matured compost is a really good idea. I'd also be interested in seeing what this stuff can do in a Jadam-style liquid fertilizer.
I own an electric compost machine and the manufacturer's instructions clearly states to use a 1 : 10 byproduct to soil ratio. (1 : 15 if the byproduct contains meat). It could vary from brand to brand.
That’s exactly what I’ve done. I also put it in the Hotbin and it’s worked fine. I always thought that if it was put in the ground directly it would just rehydrate. Any meaty or diary waste slwsys goes through my bokashi composting first.
Thank you for doing this excellent experiment. This definitely has helped me make my decision not to purchase a Lomi. Lomi products are (yet again) based on the philosophy of quick and easy convenience.
This machine would be great for living soil or a worm bin maybe even to make a compost organic matter tea just fill the tea bags with the machine processed matter ( you'll probably get some good enzymes out of it depending on what you put in the mix) ... ✌💚
@@Gardenfundamentals1 I used to go to a nursery where they had a bunch of banana peels rotting away in a container and they had a sign on it saying free organic tea( obviously for the plants😁), I think I'm going to buy one of these machines I want to try few a things just to see, worst case scenario like I said I can throw the process matter into my worm bin ... You did a Great Review of the product Thanks alot God bless.. ✌💚
I was gifted one of these and interested to see if it can be used in some way now that I have it in my kitchen. What’s the difference keeping the flakes over fall and winter to spread around the garden in spring versus spreading them right away? Is it that you’re not recommending this gadget specifically for houseplants? Any tips for how this item could be useful, now that I have it, are welcome. :)
@@najety17 I discovered if I run the same scraps twice the product is much more like dirt, less like dehydrated food shards. I’m sure this depends on what foods are put in, but maybe that trick will help you too!
ROFLMAO -- I posted information about this on a site. And someone from Lomi responded that when in Growth Mode the Lomi Dirt produced should be mixed 1 part Lomit Dirt to 10 parts Natural dirt or soil. And then THAT should be used on plants in the home and in the garden. That is .. wow .. so stupid to make this worthless.
Most gardeners have dehydrators.... could use that then buy an old used blender to pulverize and you end up with the same result much cheaper. Might cut down on the odor if it is later doused with ammonia which I hear also speeds up decomposition and is fertilizer in itself, right?
Wouldn't the ammonia kill whatever bacteria is there though? I guess they multiply pretty fast though it ammo is does do that I'd hit it with that and then some compost tea and molasses to get them back on track
@@PatC. How to Make a Homemade Compost Accelerator l. Compost is a nitrogen- and carbon-rich soil amendment made from decomposing leaves, plant debris, coffee grounds, eggshells and soil. A new compost pile can benefit from an accelerator or tonic that helps to speed decomposition. By combining a few basic ingredients, your compost pile will be cooking up nutrient rich soil in no time at all. Place a 5-gallon bucket on a sturdy work surface or on the ground. Select a bucket that has not been used to hold chemicals or other potentially harmful contents. Rinse any debris or dirt from the bucket before using. Pour 6 ounces of beer into the bucket; beer contains yeast that will help to accelerate the decomposition process. Add one-half cup of ammonia to the beer to provide an extra shot of nitrogen to the compost and help speed up the breakdown of leaves, food and other ingredients in the compost bin. Pour 2 gallons of warm water into the bucket. Add 12 ounces of soda -- regular not diet -- to the mixture to introduce extra sugars for microbes to feed on during the decomposition process. Pour the mixed tonic over the compost pile. Stir the leaves, scraps and other ingredients with a shovel, to mix in the tonic thoroughly. Things You Will Need 6 ounces beer 1/2 cup ammonia 2 gallons warm water 5-gallon bucket 12 ounces soda Shovely
Ammonia is a nitrogen source and adding it to a compost pile helps if the C/N ratio is too high. Most food scrapes have a C/N ratio about 25, which already has enough nitrogen. If you add more you might actually kill off the microbes and get no composting, or slow it down.
It’s an energy intensive process just to get the water out of the food waste, plus the ongoing expense and landfill waste of constant odor filter replacement, seems like an expensive and not very environmentally friendly way of trying to reduce some kind of waste that already has an environmentally sound solution.
I love people that truly honor the scientific method. I wish all YT videos had this level of integrity.
Please share if you have know of the Bokashi method and what you think.
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I bought one this around Christmas time last year for reduce my kitchen scrap and the odour free. My family likes seafood. The shells can be very bad smell if you don’t take out right away. And after in green bin one week, the smell very bad. So we only eat seafood on the weekend, because Monday is garbage day. Having this machine now we can eat seafood anytime we want. The machine drys and compress the waste very well. After 6 months use this machine, we only got less than 10lbs dry waste. It is works grate! I mix the waste with 80% soil and leave it in container to fermentation for next year to use. Looking forward Organic fertilizer.
It’s a shame the odor filters are not reusable and become a continuous operating expense, kind of ironic that a product meant to reduce landfill waste makes it’s own separate waste.
@@SchwaAlien plus having to wash it after every use…waste of water too.
This was exactly the video I needed. I was about to waste money on one. Thanks so much. Great video.
I live in Winnipeg (winters get to -40c) so no composting from October to April. I got a machine like this to dehydrate what I normally would compost during winter and plan to mix it in my compost bin when the weather warms. Cheers
Thanks! I didn’t understand how composting could happen in less than a day. Now I understand - it doesn’t!
Look up Reencle
Same here. It would benefit the landfills with less waste, so that our carbon footprint is smaller, but it isn't true compost.
I've been using Lomi for several weeks and love it! The ratio suggested with potting mix is :1 compost to 10 potting mix.
That's what I'm doing, mixing 10-20% with compost.
I wonder if that’s just enough to not notice it’s actually worse? Love for him to do this test going up 10%
I agree with you 100%, put it in the regular compost bin to finish composting or deep in the dirt in the Spring before planting or spread it on the top of the dirt in the winter, all for all, don't use it directly after it come out of the machine, it is not a finished product, it will burn the plants.
Bravo! I have been doing composting since the 80s and could not understand how an electronic composter could really make "quality" soil! Dehydration is NOT composting! There is so much involved in making real compost, obviously those that invented these "eco-friendly" devices, that use up lots of electricity to use, know nothing about true composting. Thank you for this video!
Thank you for posting your experiment; recently seeing adverts for this equipment, and was wondering how it compared to a “worm-bin”.
The bin I have in my kitchen doesn’t smell, and the worms do a great job with my kitchen scraps. I will stick with Mama Nature and my worm bin.
This was the exact video I've been looking for. Ever since the Lomi and other "home composters" have been taking over my social media ads for the past 2 yrs, I've regularly said myself "that isn't real compost". I haven't seen anything mentioning the beneficial microbes that are present in real compost that takes weeks to a month to create. It's exactly what you said, dried up material. Now, I guess I could probably add this to my REAL compost bin to substitute for the browns, but putting this straight on my plants? Nope.
Your lawn and garden have natural microbes to break down the organic material in warm temperatures
that's what I'm doing, adding some to my real compost.
Thank you for this.
I am very surprised that there was no sprouting at all from the pot of 100% kitchen scraps. I would have expected something because even a damp paper towel will give you sprouts. From all of your results it appears that the scraps actually inhibit sprouting.
Thank you for your wonderful video. It saved me on buying one of these electronic composter. Extremely valuable for anyone who gardens
The Cavle Composter my daughter bought me just came today. Glad I read this before getting it dirty so I can return it for a refund.
This is a great reality check. I wonder if it's OK to put into my regular Compost Bin, though. Maybe it will just speed up the normal process in there.
I live in New England and have been composting for over 10 years, but with cold winters and lots of trees blocking the sunlight, my compost bins barely made any compost; about 6 inches of compost created in 3 foot high bins in over 7 years. I gave the bins to a friend and now have been putting my Foodcycler end-product into a 6 gallon metal trashcan, along with some water and natural compost acceleratant granules. I have the metal can in the sun to break down quicker (it doesn't smell), and my plan is to wait at least a month before I mix it with soil from a nursery, in a 20/80% ratio. Then I will add it to my garden as about 2 inches of top soil.
Thank you! I was thinking about purchasing something like this but decided to do my research. Your findings make good sense and although I'm in a tiny intercity apartment this is definitely not going to help. I'm glad that I happened upon this video.
hopefully you checked out thunderfoot channel
i don't have a food cycler, but i have a dehydrator so i'm gonna conduct an experiment of my own, i'm gonna save up orange peelings, grape stems, and i'm dehydrate them along with beans and as a control i will just shred up the peelings and stems and try and experiment like what you're doing in this video, thanks for posting this and getting the gears in my mind turning👍👍
Very well done. I couldn’t understand how any device could make compost in hours. It took me weeks.
Thank you, this convinced me not to waste $500 on Lumi!!
One poorly conducted amateur experiment convinced you huh?
I had my doubts about the material when I first saw videos on these machines as you talk about. Great experiments, they prove what you are saying. My compliments. Cheers from Ottawa, Canada🍁
Thank you for testing.
I have been wondering about it.
I do Bokashi composing for my food waste and also I am waithing for this machine that I have ordered.
Now, I got the idea for solution.
I will continue Bokashi but after machine cycle, then it shorten the time of composing. I put Bokashi and food mix into pots and cover with soil a few months. But it probably takes much less time if I use both.
Thank you so much for teaching me that word!
My mother is Japanese and doesn’t speak very technical English well. We just called it “take it to the back garden”. My mom had a year round garden and she alternated the area she grew each year. Some plants would always be in certain places but we would always add “stuff” around those areas along with using the different side of the yard. Since we lived in the city we had a big garden area of the yard compared to most people…apx 100’ x60’ less where the the fruit trees were.
thank you that was nice of you to bring some reality to this, I purchased a regular composter, thank you
The manufacturer of Nagual contacted me and said the following:
"First of all, the electronic composter's end product is highly concentrated nutrients and may burn the plant if not handle properly.
1. the plants that you use in the video are way too little while the compost are way too much in ratio.
2. the compost should stay away from plants' roots
3. compost should only touches soils, not plants. "
My Response:
1) no compost is high in nutrients - even well made compost has an NPK of less then 1-1-1. The nutrients in the dried kitchen scraps produced here have almost no plant available nutrients. The company does not understand what plant "nutrients" are.
2) What good is compost if you can't put it near plants? The problem here is that the material produced is not compost - which is the conclusion in the video.
3) I agree with their suggestion - don't put it near plants.
I put a tomato in my compost, tomato seeds self germinated inside of natural compost. So i think good, natural compost cant harm plants roots
To be fair, though, they recommended a 10% mixture. Your lightest was already 2.5x that, so I'm not sure that this was really a good test. I suspect that 10% is simply a small enough number to not affect the results materially, so that's how they landed on it as a recommendation but, without deeper knowledge of plant nutrition, it would be reasonable for a viewer to see this video and just call, "user error". From an educational standpoint, it would have been best to have at least included their recommended ratio and also to explain that plants can't eat larger molecules like proteins.
Always edifying to see a good experiment.
The first reason I would not get one of these is the filters cost $60 per year. No reason for that. Outrageous.
So there’s one called Lomi and the express mode is 3-5 hours and it says not to use as compost but then they have a grow mode and it goes for 16hrs and that’s what you can use with plants. I’d love to see how this one goes up against an experiment like this.
I have asked to review their product, but did not hear from them. A year ago they did say they had no scientific study to show their product made compost.
@@Gardenfundamentals1 I'm also curious about the Lomi Grow cycle and end product. They provide tablets that contain bacteria and fungi to speed up the composting process and it runs 16 to 20 hours. Then they say to only use 10% compost in our dirt mixture. They said compost made with these tablets resulted in more plant growth than with compost made without the tablets.
@@suzanneb6608 since the product still has to be mixed in to normal soil in small amounts unlike actual compost I suspect that the pods may be providing some fertilizer along with the stuff they say it contains so that it benefits the plants, offsetting the toxicity of the non-composted plant material. Scientific analysis is needed to reveal what’s in their tablets.
They should not be allowed to market these as composters when they don't do any composting.
My Vitamix Foodcycler doesn't call itself a composter. It does suggest that you can add it to the soil as fertilizer.
Thank you so much for this video, that’s how I find you. I seen one video of a electric compost and I was amazing of it but I was skeptical because it did it only in a couple hours , so I need some more research about it and this video made up my mind going to stick with natural compost , going to buy a Tumblr now thank you 😊
Wow!! Thank You!! 🤦🏽♀️
thank you for this video. It clears up a lot of my unanswered questions
Excellent video. I really wondered how they were able to do an actual "Compost" in such a short time. Thanks for this video.
I will be keeping an eye out for your new book for sure!! Thank you once again for informing us.
Very informative. I learned that the machine is expensive dehydrator, no an actual composter. Really the dehydrated material would be great to store over the winter and place in the composter in the spring. But my dollar store bin with a tight seal lid does the trick. Thanks for extinguishing the urge to buy something I thought that’s was actually productive but really cant replace my 2$ compost holder. Thanks. Excellent video
Exactly what I’ve been looking for, a scientific comparison. Thank you!
Another winner Robert
This is great info! Thank you for clarifying. I always wondered about these machines. You just can't rush nature, it's a process that needs time.
I just reviewed the nagual on my channel and pretty much concluded the same thing. what you get is dead matter that takes less room. but you used electricity to make it and quite frankly, I don t see how one "saves" the environment while the other destroys it, it kind of cancels the whole thing out. They are acting in their response to you as though the by product is pure manure, which we all know not to put directly onto the plant roots because, yes it will burn them. But that is not what comes out of the machine. Composting requires moisture, hence the reason why you have to wet it once in a while. this machine takes the moisture out, all of it. It kills everything beneficial and there is no way it acts as though a time machine by bypassing the entire composting process. It's just an exaggeration and a marketing gimmick appealing to some folks who want to feel good about themselves and will invest $500 for that purpose. so now a machine was manufactured - carbon emission, transported, carbon emission, used, carbon emission for the sole purpose of reducing two banana peels and half an apple into dead matter. Because "go Green" - give me a break! Thank God I have a brain! Thank you for your video.
Do you have any idea how much electricity it actually uses while you celebrate your brain?
Great video, thank you for the experiment.
Thank you for this post. I was wondering whether or not to purchase an electronic composter. Now it's a definite no.
These machines do have limited usefulness. I would always take my kitchen scraps, run them through a chipper to increase the surface area and the rate at which they can be composted, and throw them in my compost bin. However that is somewhat laborious and messy for our relatively small working space. And because of that, food scraps tend to pile up and sit for a while between periods where I can process them. I got the Vitamix FoodCycler and it basically just replaces the step of me running my scraps through the chipper, and it's convenient to do more often.
And the key is: the end result still goes in the compost bin with everything else. I appreciate Vitamix for NOT claiming to be a composter, the word compost cannot even be found in the manual or on their website. (Although their marketing that it turns food scraps into 'fertilizer' is questionable, and as incomplete). Their manual does say that to be use the dehydrated food product as fertilizer it should be 1-4 weeks before planting. As you've brought out, that still doesn't quite tell the whole story. But I feel that if you understand the principles of composting, it can augment your composting process depending on your use case. Is that worth $500 to accomplish that? I'd say no, I only have one because I found it on offerup for half the price new. Using an old blender or garbage disposal may accomplish the same thing minus dehydration, just messier.
But in any event, it is definitely wrong for any of these products to advertise themselves as "composters", the end result will always need it's own composting.
I have an Idoo Garbo and I figured out after the first time using it that it wasn't compost but dehydrated scraps. What I'm thinking of doing is maybe feeding some to my worms and putting the excess into my Bokashi composter. The inoculant should help ferment it into real compost. I hope I don't kill my worms 🤔😒
This was a super comprehensive review! Thanks so much.
Thank you for this! I have one of these and I was suspicious about the advice of sprinkling it on my houseplants, it didn’t make much sense to me. I’m glad it removes food scraps from the local landfill though and I’d be super interested in your new book on composting as I have your pond gardening book which has been very helpful.
Thank you for this.
I am very surprised that there was no sprouting at all from the pot of 100% kitchen scraps. I would have expected something because even a damp paper towel will give you sprouts. From all of your results it appears that the scraps actually inhibit sprouting.
How does it remove food scraps from the local landfill? As far as I can tell the dry stuff needs to go to the same place it was destined to go before the machine spent a bunch of energy grinding and drying it; either the landfill or compost, and then it breaks down producing just as much methane as it would have unprocessed. I suppose if you burned the dry material in a wood stove that heated your place you would be saving the environment from the methane and avoid filling the landfill, but just like backyard composting that’s not an option for many folks, and it’s not advertised as a solution; they say to toss it.
@@SchwaAlien what I got out of watching all the videos was that whatever they had was much smaller.
I couldn’t glean anything else about it except there’s a lot of people that think that’s a huge help for the planet…even though the machine runs on electricity for up to 20 hours to make “dirt” and will end up in the landfill one day too. Plus the machine is not biodegradable as far as I could tell.😂
That is my goal, not putting food scraps in the landfill.
Thanks for another great vid. I've really got a lot out of your Soil Science book. Can't wait for your next one!
Awesome, educational and informative piece. Kudos!
Bless this soul 🥹 was about to buy Lomi! Changed my mind 😀
I have seen adds for those composers, I thought it sounded like a scam. Thanks for the video!
I wonder if you grind it into a powder like it shows it supposed to do, it’ll decompose quickly IN the compost pile. Maybe use an old coffee grinder and then try? I’m not spending hundreds of dollars to find out. Looks like you could use an old dehydrator and then a coffee grinder and get better results.
GREAT TESTING== everyone should watch this before using on plants
Brilliant 👏, you sir saved me from wasting my money.
Agreed... dehydrated kitchen scraps. I have the FC-50 and in general it's great for reducing the volume of waste and take away the "ick" factor from the organic waste bin. I live in an apartment so it's been a decent investment. The biggest issue I have is ensuring the waste is "balanced".. some times the grinding bucket gets stuck and the dehydrated material isn't really dry and has this weird hard caramel type consistency... not sure why - possibly because my partner like to fill above the line...and I keep saying to her - the line is there for a reason.... I give it to my friend for adding to the worm bin... which seems to be okay so far...
This man is a national treasure. Protect him at all cost.
Amen to that!!!
👍👍👍🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸💖💖💖
Great video - I keep getting ads for these countertop "composters" and I'm not a gardener or anything of the sort but even to me it was obvious that you can't make actual nutrient rich dirt compost in a few hours. I was thinking that there had to be some kind of additive or something to help the process along. I think you explain it rather well though. Dehydrated food. And like you said as soon as you give it moisture it's going to start decomposing for real and stink and become moldy. I still can't believe the companies that make this advertise it as "compost"!
When I watched the first video about this machine I thought then the it was too much faff and not worth the effort. This second video has not changed my mind. I agree that the only use for the scraps would be to add them to ones compost bin.
I feed it to my Squirrels. They love it
I read another composter instructions. It said use it after 3 or 4 weeks after mixing in with soil. Don’t plat right away. I guess it needs to absorb moisture first. Thanks interesting video.
Has nothing to do with moisture. The stuff coming out of the machine is dry - but it is not compost. 3-4 weeks won't turn it into compost.
3-4 weeks of stink because you’d have to rehydrate the dry material for it to actually compost, and then it does it’s thing just like normal unprocessed compost, so for great expense and environmental impact there’s no real advantage to combining a blender with a dehydrator for dealing with food scraps, unless you need to store it temporarily for practical reasons, then at least it makes some sense... but these kind of machines are notorious for breaking down, they aren’t a new idea - so is it really worth it? How long is the warranty?
@@SchwaAlien That’s a really good question!
Answer: It has a 1 year limited warranty but you can buy a 3 year warranty for sale for $59 now vs $79 usual cost for the 3 year extended warranty…as of 9/15/2022 6:07pm PT
Great information, as usual!
Actually..... that is exactly what Milorganite grass fertilizer is. Human sewage that has been dehydrated and broken down. My lawn LOVES it. Sooooo...... hopefully my plants like my Lomi compost too,
I have been composting off and on for over 40 years in a normal pile outside so I was extremely sceptical when they called dehydrated and chopped waste compost, it isn't that isn't the way things work.
This was a very helpful video in lowering expectations!!! Thank you for your experiment and advice. I do think the “composts” may still be very useful though. They can still help to minimize the amount of kitchen scraps we toss in landfills.
Thanks again for the experiment. You seem very knowledgeable in gardening and your video was very refreshing to watch :)
If you toss kitchen scraps in the landfill you’ll still be tossing the output of the machine in the landfill and all you’ve done is remove the water at great energy expense. If it vaporized kitchen waste by sending the output of a giant capacitor bank through the material, I could understand the claims of actual waste reduction, but this is not much different than putting food scraps in an inexpensive dehydrator if you’re wanting to spend lots of energy reducing the weight of your waste...
I watched all the videos and think it’s a waste of electricity. Plus the machine itself will end up in the landfill one day too. In addition you have to clean the bucket with water.
Any vegetable and fruit going to the landfill will decomposes and there’s no electricity or additional water that would be used.
Just my thoughts after I watched all of their videos.
Happy gardening!👍💖🌼
It just makes the scraps able to be compost faster. Will be using ours to make worm food in are worm bins
This is highly informative and interesting.
I think I may buy that to add to my outdoor compost pile!
I have the Vitamix eco 5 and it does grind it up like it’s supposed to be. I then mix it with large amounts of soil and water it for a week to let it compost. It’s very hot for sure and I’ve found about a tablespoon per gallon works well if it hasn’t been in a composter for a week first. Thought the grind on your ,aching is very lackluster so that may not be the case for you.
Thank you, very informative ☃️❄️💚🙃
Thanks for this. I'll stick to feeding the output to my worms :)
Great thorough information. Thank you.
Insulate your compost bin, keeps working even in arctic conditions.
My Hotbin is steaming all year round, 😊
We have -40 in the winter, but I do bokashi in my kitchen instead. It works too!
update: i used my dehydrator on all my food scraps for a 48 hour period, and that turned everything into a fine powder, i'm glad i came across this video, because i was considering the vitamix food cycler, but when i conducted my experiment with my dehydrator, i'm happy with the results.
I want to try this too.
Did you try using it on potted plants or seedlings? Was the result good?
What temperature did you set your dehydrator for 48h?
@@PurpleFlowersPath it started out growing good but then like the video said, the soil started to smell bad, and i think it killed the plants, and like he said in the video, something like that should be for outdoor use, because it stunk my tent up bad, and the recommended temperature for my dehydrator was 135, maybe you might have better luck with yours
I have yet to buy a bag for it or change the filter I clean it with a little brush and only run it when full which is once a week. I’m disabled so burying my food waste for me isn’t feasible so I use this and then just toss it out on my grass or plants. My dog likes the smell of it and actually eats a lot of it I’ve noticed. The smell usually is of roasted veggies 🥕 i don’t like the price point and know real composting would be better but since I’m disabled and can’t always go outside in my wheelchair nor can I dig a compost heap this is what I use. I wish I could put a solar adapter to make it run more efficiently
I have one and it works beautifully to reduce my waste. There are two grow modes that they claim can work in your garden. The first is a 3-5 hour process. The matter is reduced by about 80% and is very dry, but not nearly as lumpy in this video. The waste, they advise, is good for the trash, the green bin, or to go in one's compost. They do not advise it to be used in plants before further composting. The second mode is what they call the grow mode which is a 16-20 hour process. This comes out like light and fluffy dirt. This, they say, you can use directly on your your plants or in the soil. However, they clearly state that the ratio should be 1:10 ( One cup 'compost' and 10 cups soil) which is significantly less than what you show here. I have no real way of telling how much it may help as I use the short mode and then add to my compost bin. I imagine I will be using this when I do my planting later in the spring. We'll see how that works.
It is not compost - it is just dried kitchen scraps which still need to be composted before given to plants.
I have been reading you Garden Myths for years now and so glad to also now find you on RUclips. I use Oklin electric composters for larger scale composting and love them, they breakdown and dehydrate a lot of material very quickly. It saves a lot of energy and effort moving it around, so I think there is definitely a place for these, especially in large cities.
I think that maybe after using the kitchen composter to add it to your yard compost so it can be turned and rest like regular yard compost. For example you don't add the droppings from chickens or rabbits as soon as they dropped because that would burn the plants ... I don't get to garden often but I like it so I hope I'm right.
Hmmm I have a lomi and when i used the "plant setting" which is specific for placing in plants it was ground to comparable soil mixture. I by their instructions added a 1:10 compost to soil mixture for some corn i decided to grow and not a week later after I placed my kernels in the container(container growing corn) I have what appears to be all but maybe 1 kernal sprouting. ehh I'm pleased...
great so it did not harm you plants - but it is still not compost!
Thank you for this video. I have a question. I am a beginner gardener who rarely uses fertilizer because I’m afraid that I will burn my plants. It has always been my understanding that when starting seeds, one should never use fertilizer. Not for the first couple weeks after germination (until after it gets its true leaves). Isn’t that what this compost is when it comes out of the Lomi? I would be interested in seeing a similar control test based on using the compost on several young plants instead of seedlings.
Would it work better if you have a bucket and mix it with dirt and let it actually turn into compost first? I was hoping it would smell better and create less liquid sewage.
Nice test and analysis Thanks from a new subscriber.
Thanks for saving me money.
Thanks so much to sharing your information
Excellent video, thanks!
We'll done Sir, you provided your point. Food scraps is not a planting medium, it's a bio hazard! Lomi is an overpriced garbage dehydrator which is a total disaster!
Thanks!
This was a very interesting video.
Although I would love to see the same with basic outside dirt instead of your special growing mix, I don't want to buy something special and I'm interested in seeing if this improve the actual soil that's in tired garden's soil as would be actual compost...
Vitamix recommends 10% and adding it to established plants I would never use it for a seed starter.
...because it’s not compost, and thankfully they don’t attempt to claim that it is, but the other ones make the fraudulent claim.
You are too kind I just watched their add, they are lying, they say right out it is real compost. Thanks for saving us cash
I agree with you 100%!
I watched ALL of their videos and I couldn’t understand how they could say they had “dirt” BUT they never said “compost”, that I caught at least. All I could make of their videos was mashing up and heating the scraps with bio plastics, something I’m not a fan in composting. I think that as adding chemicals of some kind. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s just my opinion.
She did have a “pod” that supposedly has all the enzymes etc. needed for making soil or whatever they called that setting on the machine. Although I couldn’t understand how even good dirt could be made from that machine in 20 hours, which is their longest time setting.
They had a lady a wearing a white lab jacket talking about what can or can’t be put into the machine. She never said anything about the process of composting or how to grow anything.
I saw A LOT of people saying how great the machine was and how good it was for the planet.
You can imagine how negative my post was. I basically said you can’t believe someone just because they’re wearing a white lab coat. People needed to use common sense vs listening to whatever they’re told.
I deleted my post and saw this review. I was so glad too!
I just see that someone is really great about how to market something for that type of person that needs to feel they are doing something good about global warming, carbon footprint, making waste into something useful etc.
Maybe I’m just getting old and I don’t have the patience for people that think like that. Example: the machine needs electricity vs solar energy and it’s still going to end up in the landfill when it breaks or is no longer used. Even now I’m rolling my eyes thinking about those videos and all that WAS NOT said.
My mom is Japanese and had a year round garden that we ate from 99.99% of the time. I don’t remember going to the grocery store unless it was on Thanksgiving and my mom wanted red radishes to makes roses to decorate the turkey platter with.
Basically, after all my venting here, I thought the machine was being sold as something it’s not…making good dirt and was extremely expensive! This video was exactly what I needed to see to confirm my opinion about the machine. The other stuff was just my personal opinion about the people who probably never had a garden let alone a composting system of any kind.
Happy gardening to you!
🌼💖🌼
Thank you for your patience if you read all of my post.
Thanks for this extremely helpful information =)
Too much organic material decomposing at once and your 'soil' more closely resembles a newly established and highly active compost-pile full of nitrogen rich material, which is great if you're intending to start a compost pile but terrible to grow anything in directly other than microbes. However, many seasoned gardeners know that burying kitchen scraps in the garden is highly beneficial for feeding the microbes present in the soil and improving soil fertility. Soil itself is basically mother natures digestive system. That's where everything goes eventually, even us... But you really can't grow anything in an active compost pile even if it is nestled down neatly into a small cup like this. Disappointing, I know. However, if you were to repeat this same experiment only using a common organic fertilizer like 'alfalfa meal' or Dr. Earth (in place of the dry kitchen scraps) you will get very similar results! But why? Too much organic decomposition = stinky anerobic mess that promotes plant pathogens. Don't over-fertilize and this problem is solved. The results of this experiment demonstrate the hazards of overfertilizing (with any organic fertilizer) and is to be expected.
Try this for an experiment:
Grind those dry scraps down into a homogenous powder and then disperse a very small amount (perhaps a teaspoon or so) per-gallon of fertigation water for a good starting application rate and then take things from there with the concentrations and compare to the controls. A little goes a long way. Remember, pelletized organic fertilizers take some time to break down as they nourish the soil food web more slowly, whereas a fine powdery material has far greater surface area contact with the soil and microbes- so it speeds up the colonization and decomposition of the material, thus less of it should be used than your typical pelletized organic amendments but should also be applied more often. Also, I think it would be better to run the experiment for a little longer to observe any long-term morphological changes taking place in the plants and changes in the soil or substrate as things develop. I suspect you will have more useful experimental results this way and be able to determine what the efficacious application of this fertilizer material is. Much depends on the biology of your soil to begin with, so seeding the substrate with some leaf mold or well matured compost is a really good idea.
I'd also be interested in seeing what this stuff can do in a Jadam-style liquid fertilizer.
Great report Robert! As so often happens, the manufacturer is putting out false and misleading information on their product.
I own an electric compost machine and the manufacturer's instructions clearly states to use a 1 : 10 byproduct to soil ratio. (1 : 15 if the byproduct contains meat). It could vary from brand to brand.
It seems like the only way this thing would work is if the stuff then went through a worm bin.
That’s exactly what I’ve done. I also put it in the Hotbin and it’s worked fine. I always thought that if it was put in the ground directly it would just rehydrate. Any meaty or diary waste slwsys goes through my bokashi composting first.
Great information 🌱💚
Thank you for doing this excellent experiment. This definitely has helped me make my decision not to purchase a Lomi. Lomi products are (yet again) based on the philosophy of quick and easy convenience.
This machine would be great for living soil or a worm bin maybe even to make a compost organic matter tea just fill the tea bags with the machine processed matter ( you'll probably get some good enzymes out of it depending on what you put in the mix) ... ✌💚
It is not compost. So trying to make compost tea won't work.
@@Gardenfundamentals1 I used to go to a nursery where they had a bunch of banana peels rotting away in a container and they had a sign on it saying free organic tea( obviously for the plants😁), I think I'm going to buy one of these machines I want to try few a things just to see, worst case scenario like I said I can throw the process matter into my worm bin ...
You did a Great Review of the product Thanks alot God bless..
✌💚
I was gifted one of these and interested to see if it can be used in some way now that I have it in my kitchen. What’s the difference keeping the flakes over fall and winter to spread around the garden in spring versus spreading them right away? Is it that you’re not recommending this gadget specifically for houseplants? Any tips for how this item could be useful, now that I have it, are welcome. :)
I’m really curious about that as well. I have one and want to know the best way to use it in the garden.
@@najety17 I discovered if I run the same scraps twice the product is much more like dirt, less like dehydrated food shards. I’m sure this depends on what foods are put in, but maybe that trick will help you too!
No difference. You might as well spread them as soon as you get them.
Interesting experiment. I would be curious what the PH and nitrogen levels are in the different test pots?
ROFLMAO -- I posted information about this on a site. And someone from Lomi responded that when in Growth Mode the Lomi Dirt produced should be mixed 1 part Lomit Dirt to 10 parts Natural dirt or soil. And then THAT should be used on plants in the home and in the garden. That is .. wow .. so stupid to make this worthless.
Most gardeners have dehydrators.... could use that then buy an old used blender to pulverize and you end up with the same result much cheaper. Might cut down on the odor if it is later doused with ammonia which I hear also speeds up decomposition and is fertilizer in itself, right?
Wouldn't the ammonia kill whatever bacteria is there though? I guess they multiply pretty fast though it ammo is does do that I'd hit it with that and then some compost tea and molasses to get them back on track
@@MrJesusHKrist I've never tried ammonia and it's been a long time since I read about it, but I believe you have to dilute it pretty good first.
@@PatC. How to Make a Homemade Compost Accelerator l. Compost is a nitrogen- and carbon-rich soil amendment made from decomposing leaves, plant debris, coffee grounds, eggshells and soil. A new compost pile can benefit from an accelerator or tonic that helps to speed decomposition. By combining a few basic ingredients, your compost pile will be cooking up nutrient rich soil in no time at all.
Place a 5-gallon bucket on a sturdy work surface or on the ground. Select a bucket that has not been used to hold chemicals or other potentially harmful contents. Rinse any debris or dirt from the bucket before using.
Pour 6 ounces of beer into the bucket; beer contains yeast that will help to accelerate the decomposition process.
Add one-half cup of ammonia to the beer to provide an extra shot of nitrogen to the compost and help speed up the breakdown of leaves, food and other ingredients in the compost bin.
Pour 2 gallons of warm water into the bucket. Add 12 ounces of soda -- regular not diet -- to the mixture to introduce extra sugars for microbes to feed on during the decomposition process.
Pour the mixed tonic over the compost pile. Stir the leaves, scraps and other ingredients with a shovel, to mix in the tonic thoroughly.
Things You Will Need
6 ounces beer
1/2 cup ammonia
2 gallons warm water
5-gallon bucket
12 ounces soda
Shovely
@@MrJesusHKrist Thanks for the recipe
Ammonia is a nitrogen source and adding it to a compost pile helps if the C/N ratio is too high. Most food scrapes have a C/N ratio about 25, which already has enough nitrogen. If you add more you might actually kill off the microbes and get no composting, or slow it down.
Thank you for this experiment! I was wondering if that contraption was worth the money. Now I know it is not!
I use lomi, and then put in my composer to mix with other stuff.
Quality video thank you! I think I will still get the lomi machine but I'll just use it to file down my trash
It’s an energy intensive process just to get the water out of the food waste, plus the ongoing expense and landfill waste of constant odor filter replacement, seems like an expensive and not very environmentally friendly way of trying to reduce some kind of waste that already has an environmentally sound solution.
@@SchwaAlien 👍👍👍
@@SchwaAlien Read their comment again.
so the electronic composter just slowed down the composting process?
I'll stick to my bins in the garden, i think
No it did not slow it down. Composting never starts that quickly.