Houston Texas is not only known for its humid  weather, Houston Rocket, YaoMing, but also known for its collection of mosquito. While this collection of insects attack its human baits, some would wonder why I am building a “Taoist garden” in Houston.

Taoism is the concept of balance, harmony, ying/yang, “leave it alone” and let nature take its course. Well, since it is so difficult to understand, why not build a garden around this concept.  So therein lies the challenge, how to put everything together without doing anything. This can be hard work.

A garden by its very definition has plants in it, supported by dirt and water, sun, etc. So in planning my garden, I had to begin with dirt. Where does dirt come from, from dissolving stones and rock, but that would take too long, millions of years. No time, so I commenced to build dirt from composting. At first, I dragged all the oak  leaves from under the tree to a location in back of my garage, which was a foresight that I had because of the fear my wife had for mosquitos. I left the leaves there in a pile for 3 years and nothing happened, except I looked at the leaves and leaves stared back. A well intended friend came by and studied the leaves and told me that oak has tannic acid in it to keep the leaves from breaking down, so I needed to leaves down. At first it was daunting by hand, then with a blower, and finally with an electric lawnmower, the leaves were mulched down.

The second step was to raid the local Starbucks for their coffee grinds, which in itself was a messy job since the leaked inside my car, which now smells like a coffee distillery. With the grinds layered into the leaves, the process was not complete with out some “green”, vegetable, grass cuttings, orange peels, etc.  With each layer about 2/3 inches thick, the decomposing begins. So now  instead of years, we have good dirt fit for a “Queen Bees” garden.

What is to come next is very interesting. For a preview  goto: www.realteachers.org/retire/rock.htm