Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news, no matter how tiresome or weird, from our garden. You may remember me from such posts as “Weirdly Lit”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose. Okay, really not hugely characteristic, because I’m being ultra serious and super good. The guy I live with took my picture, but before he did that, he said “Sit“. And this is the result. 
I am trained, after all. The guy I live with forgets that all the time, because, of course, he isn’t trained. I get training at Day Care, and he should know that.
I got a biscuit, of course, for sitting when I was told to sit. And cuddles. The guy I live with would rush to say that I wasn’t “told”; it was just a suggestion. I guess it really was, instead of a command.
Okay. Now on to the topics I’ve selected for today’s post. I’m not sure where to start. I guess I can skip the part where the guy I live with coughed a whole bunch because of smoke from who knows what was being burned, by someone in the neighborhood, and his voice was wrecked for the whole day (though I thought it sounded pretty funny), but being angry about this certainly did take up a lot of emotional energy. “Neighbors”, he said, gazing upward.
The other thing, and this is a really big thing, like cosmically huge, I guess, is the “horrible smell” in the kitchen. I haven’t noticed it, but it’s there. It’s been mentioned about a million times today. It was noticed just this morning, and apparently it’s getting worse. What it smells like, according to the guy I live with, who has a highly-developed sense of smell (so he says; he’s not a purebred border collie) is some vegetable matter which is rapidly going off. At first he was afraid it might be something that had died behind the refrigerator, and so we looked behind the refrigerator.
And then there was the possibility that he’d put something, like say a bag of cilantro, into the pantry instead of the refrigerator, so we looked there, more than once.
Nothing.
So we pretty much wrote that off as being yet another of the very weird things that happen from time to time, and though there was a great deal of talk about how that was going to be considered that, and nothing more would come of it, I bet there will be more thinking about it tomorrow, with things being moved, examined, contemplated, scrutinized, and, above all, smelled. But it does smell like a bag of cilantro or lettuce that’s gone off. The bag isn’t in the refrigerator, so where could it be?
It is kind of gross, talking about this, but it’s been the main subject of what’s been a very weird day. “The smell …..the smell …..”
Oh, well, maybe not the main subject. Because the “super genius” wanted to point out that the method of re-potting new plants in order to get the roots to grow out of the root ball actually works.
So the re-potting thing works, as you can see. No real need, that I can see, to strut around talking about the “super genius”, but it happened anyway.
Really, the main subject was of course the peculiar smell, but according to the guy I live with the main subject should have been him being shown to be the super genius of all time because of the re-potting thing (as well as a whole bunch of other things which we can talk about some other time), mainly because he didn’t like the idea that people reading this post would envision him spending the whole day sniffing around the kitchen, like a bloodhound.
The other thing that happened, and something I think you will find much more enjoyable than all this other stuff, is that it rained. I know it’s obvious that it rained, since I’m showing rain movies, but, well, you know what I mean. It rained.
This truly is the best part, since we’re gardeners and all that. I should say that you can embiggen these films and watch them in high definition, if you want. We like to provide features like high definition, in order to make the blog seem a bit more classy, if you didn’t know.
It rained for a while. The sun was sort of out, too, which contributed to the effect.
I guess that’s all I have. The rain might not have been enough to get the soil wet very deeply, but it was nice to watch.
The smell is still in the kitchen, and the guy I live with gets up from his chair and walks over to the refrigerator and sniffs, and then walks back to his chair and sits down again. I do plan to tell you what we found, if we ever find anything, that caused the smell, unless of course it’s something we would rather not talk about. Nothing extremely gross, for sure. We do have certain standards of propriety here, as maybe you know.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Mani, you are such a handsome, well trained pure bred Border Collie. Too bad TGYLW is not as well trained but it sounds like he has some super genius traits so maybe that makes up for it.
The new potting technique is something I will be trying next spring on Purshia tridentata. I ordered them from Franklin H. Pitkin Forest Nursery – University of Idaho this spring. They looked vigorous and with a healthy root system but only two out of five survived and my friends at Perennial Favorites Nursery say they often resent transplanting. Everything else I have ordered from this nursery has done very well.
Wish me luck.
That is possible. There’s a bitterbrush here which has been here for pretty much forever, thirty years or so, but then another one was purchased in a gallon container, planted, and it didn’t survive. The whole idea behind the Super Genius Potting Technique is to encourage roots to grow out of the root ball prior to planting. Hopefully growing in the direction of the surrounding soil they’re going to be planted in.
Yes, I’m wondering if a smidgen of my native soil in the potting mix will lessen the culture shock.
Maybe. The damp sand seems to encourage roots to seek it out. The theory is that once the roots leave the root ball, there’s no stopping them. Watering would still be necessary, of course. But how many times have you planted something grown in a 2 1/4” pot, root ball mostly roots, only to find it dead in the garden a few weeks later? This method may help with that.
For those of us who didn’t think to make a note of it the first time – would TGYLW go over the Super Genius Potting Technique again? I looked through a bunch of previous posts but can’t find it. I enjoyed the looking though. I like the decorations on the pantry door. You know what really smells bad? One time many many years ago I forgot some potatoes in a canister on the counter. The lid was tight so I never knew. When I was moving and checked the canister (in the 70’s everyone had a matching set on their counter you know) because it felt heavy I almost passed out. They had liquefied. mmmm.
Potatoes can be very gross. There isn’t anything like that here. The refrigerator is almost empty, except for some bottles of kombucha, and jarred things. And a can of Taste of the Wild, for me, of course. (I get that on top of my dry food.) The potting technique, re-potting, really, just involves re-potting in a larger pot and adding some sand and perlite. The roots seem eager to explore the damp sand. So many plants have been planted here that never had their roots go anywhere; maybe this technique will help.
I had a very short roommate accidentally leave a package of ground beef on top of the fridge while unloading groceries. Fortunately her nose was much more sensitive than mine was. She was going bonkers trying to figure out what the smell was and I couldn’t smell it. Poor girl couldn’t see it since she was too short to see the top of the fridge (not sure why she put her meat up there to begin with). Finally she figured out the origin of the smell and looked up high. Apparently the stench was even worse when she started shifting things around. Fortunately (again) I wasn’t home for this part.
Best of luck with your stinky situation.
Thanks. Years and years ago the guy I live with once put some bags of frozen homemade chicken stock on top of the refrigerator in the garage, and then forgot about them. The stock thawed, and dripped. He washed the inside of the 1960s Philco refrigerator, left the plastic crisper drawer on top of the truck to dry, then drove off. That was that for the crisper drawer.
Perhaps look in the drain for the noxious odor? Life has to return to a proper state in your household. We went to Planter Paradise, and they had huge bags of sand and bags of perlite. Of course, I thought of you, Mani, listening to the Super Genius expound his theory. I must admit it sounds a likely winner. I tried to convince my husband to switch to the guy you live with’s technique, but he persisted with buying potting soil. I mean, the bags of perlite and the bags of sand were *right there*. Hmmph. As always, thank you for the rain images. I put my sound on for just these videos because the sound is so beautiful and lulling. Images of foliage dancing and bouncing in the wind and rain are mesmerizing. Stay trained, Mani. I’m sure your conditioning will lead to more biscuits and cuddles.
You’re welcome for the rain films. It wasn’t much rain, less than a tenth of an inch, but it was rain. We think you’ll find that roots find damp sand more enticing than potting soil, but, you know, whatever. I might post some more pictures of roots, later. Funny thing. The smell was really bad yesterday. Now it’s gone. The guy I live with said it might have been the ghosts of long-gone vegetables, come back to haunt him. The smell was replaced by Quite Another Smell late last night, with the result that I, who did eventually come when called, wound up in the bath tub, getting shampooed. So today there was more investigation, to try to see where the Striped Kitty was getting into my back yard, and maybe it was found. A couple of detached fence pickets in the Employee’s Only section.
Mystery smells, genius repotting and more striped kitties. You really do keep busy! Good luck on the smell search, in this house they come and go with a remarkable frequency and I never do manage to find them with any pinpoint confidence. Except for the potatoes. Those never remain undiscovered.
What a gifted ‘sitter’, now about that brushing thing…
Well, the brushing seems to me to be completely unnecessary. So what if some of the hairs on my coat stick out, I say. The strange thing about the smell. It started, I think, last Saturday. Maybe Friday. It was really bad on Sunday, but on Monday it was completely gone.
I once had a small furry unwanted visitor die under my fridge, but on top of the little radiator coil thing by the drip pan. So even moving the fridge revealed nothing. The only time I smelled it was when the coils heated up and warmed up the deceased. When the fridge cycled off, so did the smell…..
The guy I live with did pull out the drip pan, and also looked at the coils, which he vacuums fairly regularly, and there was nothing there.
He likes the ghosts theory, but I’m not so sure ….
Had a mouse die In the stove once upon a time in a spot where we could not dismantle the stove to get at it. The stove had to go outside (and eventually away) and a new one acquired.
A similar thing happened here. To the extent that the stove could not be turned on. There’s a new stove, now. The one you see in the blog.
I don’t like to command dogs, either.
I loved every second of the rain films.
I don’t really do commands unless it’s just the guy I live with telling me what to do. I never do commands when other people are watching. It’s embarrassing.
Oh, and Allan left a package of frozen Brussels sprouts on the dryer once. Peeyew. The dryer is near the freezer. Took awhile to track down the source.
That’s happened here, more than once.