Inviting Indigenous Micro-Organisms to the Table: "The Lunchbox"

  This is a more practical follow-up to the previous post, "Touching the Earth," about a natural farming workshop I participated in a month ago.  So much of the processes we learned in the workshop were homely, comforting, domestic.  This work is truly the work of the kitchen, of cooking, of transformation. 

   Bernie Glassman, Zen teacher and founder of the Zen Peacemakers, wrote a book with Rick Fields on socially engaged Buddhism called Instructions to the Cook, based on the writing of the same name by 13th century Japanese Soto Zen founder Eihei Dogen.  In it Glassman reminds us repeatedly to "use all the ingredients of our life."  In the Zen Peacemaker version of the precepts which practitioners take when formally becoming Buddhists, the precept traditionally translated negatively as "not being stingy" is formulated positively as "using all the ingredients of my life."  How are these two renderings related, and what do they have to do with indigenous micro-organisms?

  What impressed me most about the natural farming workshop was its approach of connection and mutual support of all life forms for each other.  As a horticulturist I feel like much of my training privileged sterility.  The best soil was a sterile one for fear of the pests and diseases that might lurk within.  Most potting mixes use peat moss rather than soil as their base, not only because of its lightness but because of its antiseptic qualities.  At Stonecrop Gardens we actually used rich fertile soil dredged from the bottom of a pond as part of our mix, but first it passed through a soil cooker which baked the soil to the point that anything living in it was killed.  Especially when working with seedlings, "dampening off" (when fungus kills off seedlings by attacking their stems) can be an issue and my heart still leans in the direction of sterility for seedlings, but I do wonder if dampening off is really just a problem of an unbalanced ecosystem where one fungus can run rampant in a soil that is devoid of any other life.

  The whole natural farming approach is to invite life in all its forms into the practice of growing food rather than keeping it out.  The first step is to invite the indigenous micro-organisms (IMOs) already present in your life to dinner.  Brown rice is prepared and packed into a "lunchbox" for your microscopic guests.  This lunchbox can be an actual box of wood or it could be a straw basket, as long as it is porous.  I used a woven basket I bought at a Chinese grocery store that I think is meant for washing rice.  The rice should fill the container two-thirds full and then be covered with a porous material (kitchen towel, paper towel, etc) to allow movement of air. 

Now what is the "ingredient of my life" here?  Is it the brown rice?  My knowledge of this technique?  My intention?  Are the micro-organisms the ingredient?  Am I the ingredient of the micro-organisms' lives that is being used here?  Whose life?

  When the lunchbox has been prepared, you should bring your gift to your neighbors' house, that is, the compost pile.  Bury it in the compost pile in a sheltered site where it will not get rained on or otherwise soaked.  I have a three-bin composter with lids, so I placed the "lunchbox" in there and buried it.  A pile of leaves would also work.

The organisms already present in the compost pile, the very organisms that create the "black gold" that will eventually get laid into garden beds, will flock to the meal you have prepared for them.  Over the course of a week or two, depending on ambient temperature (you can add some fresh manure to the compost pile to help heat it up), the rice will be colonized by a rich array of fungi and bacteria.

When a good population of IMOs has been established, the rice will hold together as a solid mass.  The white fuzz is fungal hyphae that binds it all together.  Fungi, the living "internet" of the earth as Paul Stamets writes, form 40% of all the living material in healthy soils and have symbiotic relationships with over 90% of plants.  Ideally the hyphae are so vigorous they can end up filling the whole empty third of the container.   My first attempt at this didn't yield those results but still created a good population.  White should predominate, but there may also be other colors in your culture.  In this case there was a lot of green as well.   I'm not sure if there was too much, but I am trusting that the underlying concept of the rightness of life versus sterility means it is OK.  The fungal digestion of the rice releases a slightly sweet fermented fragrance that reminds me of miso. 

Notice the worms woven through the basket when I pulled the IMO rice culture out.  The fungus will feed other organisms like the worms that have sought this initial culture out already.  The worms in turn will enrich the soil with their castings and feed plants which will feed people.  What will we feed?  We too are part of the lunchbox, another ingredient of the life we all share together.

  The mass of rice impregnated with fungus and other organisms is known as IMO #1 and is the basis for creating further preparations that will enliven garden soil.  I'll write about IMO #2 soon.  In the meantime, why  not invite your own indigenous micro-organisms to dinner?