House and garden news

A couple of weeks ago I was browsing the garden center of Home Depot and decided I ought to buy some fertilizer for the vegetable garden. I've heard great things about growing tomatoes with fish emulsion, but had never tried it, so this is what I came home with.

Sunday afternoon I finally got around to trying it out, and oh. My. God. The smell. 

Just unscrewing the cap flooded the back porch with a stench the likes of which I've never experienced. It was like some awful sea creature voided its bowels and then died. It was so godawful I even Googled whether or not it was possible for fish emulsion to "go bad"! (Nope, it's supposed to be smell like that). 

Holy shit, y'all. I had no idea! Even after diluting it down and pouring it on the tomatoes, the smell lingered in the back yard. It seemed like it was all over me, too, even after I took a shower. It's like the stench got stuck in my nose or something and I couldn't escape it!

Even if this stuff grows prize winning tomatoes, I'm not sure I'll ever use it again. That's how bad it smells.

In more pleasant garden news, here are some hydrangea blooms I picked for the house. 

They were a gift from my workmates in April of last year. I potted them up in a large container  and forgot about them over the winter. They came back this spring better than ever and the flowers last a long time in a vase.

And in other excellent news, our new bed arrived last week! We're thrilled with it. We picked out the furniture from an online catalog (the mattress was chosen in the store) and it's so much nicer and heavier than we expected. Here it is right after it was set up. We only had the sheets on, but we've since gotten our new duvets for the top. It feels downright luxurious!

And guess who had to try it out first thing!