BuildASoil Kashi Gold
BuildASoil Kashi Gold
Solid state ferment, made by hand
Put the biology where the food is
You already have compost, castings, and dry amendments sitting under your mulch. Whether any of it reaches the plant comes down to the biology working that layer. Kashi Gold is EM-1 fermented onto a rice bran carrier, which means you can put that culture exactly where the food is, in a form that stays put and brings its own meal along with it.
4.9 out of 5 from 63 reviews, 97 percent would recommend it
What it does up there
Three things start happening in the mulch layer at once
It is a live culture on an edible carrier that feeds your plants as well as your biology. When it lands on a moist, covered layer it goes to work in three directions at the same time.
One application, sprinkled on the mulch
Everything below happens in the same layer, in the same week, from the same handful.
It works on the amendments you already put down
The probiotic culture goes after the material sitting in that layer, your mulch, your compost top dress, your dry amendments. That is the whole reason it belongs on the surface instead of tilled in. The food is up there, so the biology goes up there.
EM-1 culture
The carrier is a meal in its own right
Rice bran is not inert filler holding the culture together. It is a rich food source on its own, high in phosphorus and oil, and it feeds the layer whether or not there is anything else up there for the biology to work on. The finished product tested at 7.59 percent phosphorus, which makes Kashi Gold a strong flowering fertilizer on its own.
High phos rice bran
Minerals and nutrients arrive already fermented
Basalt rock dust brings a broad mineral profile, and minerals are the cofactors enzymes run on. Black soldier fly frass brings a wide range of nutrients plus a small amount of chitin. Both went through the ferment before they ever reached your bag, so they arrive already worked rather than sitting on the surface waiting their turn.
Basalt rock dust flourBlack soldier fly frass
The other two inputs, sea salt and organic cane molasses, do their work before the bag is sealed. They are there so the fermentation finishes correctly, which is Alan's job, not yours.
Bucket versus bed
Almost all bokashi in the world is sold to ferment kitchen scraps
That is a good use for it. It is not this use. Bran inoculated for a sealed bucket is formulated to pickle food waste in an airtight container over two weeks. Bokashi for a living bed has a different job, and if you have been buying the bucket kind and sprinkling it on your garden, you have been using a tool slightly off label.
Bucket bokashi
- Formulated for a sealed anaerobic container
- Job is to ferment food waste before it goes in the ground
- Usually bran plus a culture, priced as a consumable
- Nothing in it is chosen for what is already living in your bed
Kashi Gold
- Built for the mulch layer of a living, planted bed
- Job is to cycle the mulch, compost, and amendments already there
- Carries rock dust, frass, and mineral salt alongside the culture
- Made in small batches by the person who designed the category
What is in it
Six inputs, and a reason for each one
How to use it
Sprinkle it on the mulch, water it in lightly, leave it alone
This is a surface product. It works at the mulch and soil interface, so do not till it in and do not bury it. Put it where the moisture and cover are.
| Use | Rate | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Top dress, established beds and containers | 2 to 4 tablespoons per square foot, across the mulch layer | Every 1 to 3 weeks |
| New beds, or heavy fresh mulch | Handfuls tossed in as you build the layer | At setup, to get activity started |
| Compost pile boost | Half a cup to 1 cup per cubic foot of compost | As you turn or build the pile |
What a bag actually covers
Kashi Gold weighs about 4.25 ounces per cup, so a 2 pound bag is roughly 7.5 cups, or about 120 tablespoons. At the top dress rate that works out to somewhere between 30 and 60 square feet per application depending on whether you go light or heavy.
In practical terms, one bag gives you two to four full passes over a 4 foot by 4 foot bed.
Store it somewhere animals cannot get to it. This is the single most common thing that goes wrong with Kashi Gold, and it is not a plant problem. Dogs, chickens, and mice will find an open bag and eat the whole thing. Keep it sealed, cool, and dry, which also preserves viability. A solid state ferment stored properly stays good for years.
Lab tested
Finished product analysis by Spectrum Analytic, lab number FF73155, sampled September 17, 2026. One batch, not a guaranteed analysis.
Full lab report (PDF)FAQs
The white stuff Alan called it mycelium. He was probably right.
What you will see
White, fuzzy growth in the mulch a few days after application. Big pillowy clouds usually form under a plastic mulch cover, like the one on an EarthBox. In an open mulch layer of wood chips, straw, or leaves, peel the layer back and you will often find remnants of it underneath.
Why it shows up
Kashi Gold is a lactic ferment, and a lactic ferment stays stable as long as air stays out. In a bokashi bucket, white fuzz forms at the very top, where air hits every time the lid comes off. On your mulch, you are doing that on purpose. Kashi Gold opens a sour ferment full of easy food to air and moisture, and the food brings in the things that eat it. That first wave is the white growth.
What it most likely is
Fungal growth. EM-1 itself is lactic acid bacteria, yeast, and phototrophic bacteria, and none of those grow as fuzzy threads. For a while we told people it was actinomycetes, a group of bacteria that grow in threads and look a lot like fungi. That answer is usually right for hot compost. But molds and actinomycetes both need air, and what separates them here is acid. Actinomycetes do not handle acid well, and fresh Kashi Gold is sour. Molds that handle acid are well documented in silage, a world Alan knows well, since his family was in the silage industry.
Why it always goes away
The pillows are the first step in a cascade, not a state your bed stays in. As that first growth eats, the acid gets used up, the easy food runs out, and other biology moves in: bacteria, springtails and mites that graze on fungi, and eventually worms. Whether you see pillows at all depends on cover, moisture, light, and airflow. They are not a sign your bed is perfect. They are a cool look at the first step.
Lab data Third party analysis on the finished product and its inputs
These are third party certificates of analysis from Spectrum Analytic. The first is Kashi Gold itself, tested as a finished product, and its headline numbers are shown above. The tables below are the two dry inputs that carry almost all of the nutrition, rice bran and black soldier fly frass. All three PDFs are linked below so you can read them yourself rather than take our summary for it. None of them is a guaranteed analysis.
| Analysis | Rice bran | Black soldier fly frass |
|---|---|---|
| Total nitrogen | 2.28 percent | 3.11 percent |
| Available phosphorus as P2O5 | 6.30 percent | 3.41 percent |
| Potassium as K2O | 1.68 percent | 0.94 percent |
| Zinc | 60 mg/kg | 276 mg/kg |
| Copper | 17 mg/kg | 13 mg/kg |
Full heavy metal panel on both inputs
| Element | Rice bran | Black soldier fly frass |
|---|---|---|
| Arsenic | 0.11 mg/kg | 0.01 mg/kg |
| Cadmium | 0.86 mg/kg | 0.46 mg/kg |
| Cobalt | 0.81 mg/kg | 0.69 mg/kg |
| Lead | 4.8 mg/kg | 0.86 mg/kg |
| Mercury | <0.2 mg/kg | <0.2 mg/kg |
| Molybdenum | 2.61 mg/kg | 2.20 mg/kg |
| Nickel | 3.2 mg/kg | 2.4 mg/kg |
| Selenium | 0.14 mg/kg | 0.04 mg/kg |
Analyzed by Spectrum Analytic Inc., Washington Court House, Ohio. Rice bran lab number FF59197, frass lab number FF58678.
Where it came from Gro-Kashi, then Kashi Blend, then Alan came back
Bokashi itself is old, an anaerobic fermentation practice that predates all of us. What was new was building one specifically for growing plants rather than for processing waste. We met Alan Adkisson years ago through the Probiotic Farmers Alliance, and he was the first person we knew doing exactly that. The business he built with his partner Eddy Lepp became Gro-Kashi, and it set the bar for the category.
Later a former BuildASoil employee named AJ carried that work forward with Kashi Blend at Growing Organic. When that chapter closed, the thing we wanted was the original. Alan rejoined us, and Kashi Gold is what we made together: his process, his hands, refined over years of doing it.
He ferments it, dries it, and finishes it himself, including a sun activation step meant to encourage purple non sulfur bacteria and hold the living character of the batch. You will notice it the second the bag opens. The aroma is sour and fermented, in the way a good pickle crock is sour, and growers who know the smell look for it.
One size There is only a two pound bag, and that is Alan's calendar talking
We would like to sell this in bigger bags. Customers ask for it and we have looked at it more than once. The limit is not a marketing decision, it is production. Alan makes this by hand in small batches, we place our orders far ahead of the season, and every time we have run the math on a larger size we have reached the same answer: we would sell through it and then be out of stock for months. A bag smaller than you wanted beats a listing that says sold out.
That is changing slowly. He is buying his own equipment and the process gets tighter every year we do this together. When a bigger bag shows up here it will be because he can actually keep up with it, not because we decided to gamble on your order.
Questions
What people ask us
Do I need a bokashi bucket to use this?
No. That is the whole point of it. Kashi Gold goes straight onto the mulch layer of a planted bed or container. If you also want to run a kitchen scrap bucket you can, but this was designed for the garden.
I never got any white growth. Did it not work?
It worked. Big pillowy clouds usually form under a plastic mulch cover, like on an EarthBox, where it stays dark, humid, and still. In an open mulch layer you usually will not see clouds on top, but peel the layer back and you will often find remnants underneath. If the surface dried out or sat in bright light, you may never see it.
The white growth is the first step in a cascade, and the rest of it happens whether you see the pillows or not. Do not worry about it too much.
The white growth showed up and then vanished after two days.
Normal, and it always does. The white pillows are the first wave of biology eating a sour ferment full of easy food. As they eat, the acid gets used up, the easy food runs out, and other organisms take over. The pillows cannot hang on once conditions change. What you saw was the start of the process, and the layer keeps working after the fuzz is gone.
There is green growth on the soil in my container. What is that?
Green, powdery growth on the soil surface is usually Trichoderma, an extremely common soil fungus. Finding it in a moist, planted container is normal. If the layer turns slimy or black, or smells rotten instead of sour, something went off.
How long does it keep working after I apply it?
We are not going to give you a number we cannot back up. The published bokashi timelines you will find online are about fermented food waste buried in soil, which is a completely different situation from bran on a mulch surface, and nobody has published good data on ours. What we can tell you is the reasoning behind the rate. Two to four tablespoons per square foot is a small amount of readily available carbon, and in a warm, moist, covered layer it gets used. That is why we suggest coming back every 1 to 3 weeks instead of once a month and hoping.
Can I use too much?
Stick to 2 to 4 tablespoons per square foot and you are fine. Very heavy applications on a thin or dry mulch layer can go sour on the surface rather than cycling cleanly, which mostly means you wasted product. Keep the layer moist and covered and it will work through.
Indoor or outdoor?
Both, year round, in no till and organic systems. The aroma is noticeable for a day or so after application in a closed tent, so some indoor growers apply right before lights out or right after they run their exhaust.
Is it safe around worms?
Yes, applied at the rates above on the mulch surface. Growers regularly report finding more worms in beds they are running this on. Do not dump a concentrated pile of it directly into a worm bin.
How long does a bag last on the shelf?
Years, if you keep it sealed, cool, and dry. A properly finished solid state fermentation is stable. The realistic threat to your bag is not time, it is your dog.
What runs with it
Kashi Gold cycles what you put down, so put something down
The standard order is the same whatever soil recipe you are running. Amendments on the soil surface, mulch over the top of them, then Kashi Gold on the mulch.
Not sure what you should be applying and when, run your setup through the BuildASoil feed calculator.
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