Garden near disaster and major annoyance

 So went out this morning to water really fast and hooked up my nozzle, turned on the water and before I could even get near a bed the water cut off. Looked back at the rest of the hose and no kinks. Immediately knew what happened.

Hose finally blew off. This picture was taken after I pulled it apart. Several issues with this situation right off the bat: It is going to be 80+ today and I am trying to get out and water the sunnier seedling bed. The original fix for the hose was wrong and hence it blew. Apparently the other lady had used it yesterday because her bed was wet. Great. Okay I know how to fix this but the problem is the repair fittings were for a larger hose which is why the clamp on it never seated well and it blew off. Took me half an hour of trying to get it to work and just couldn't do it. 

We were on our way out for shopping since I got money and told one of the managers I would get a new hose and just take it off my rent (like that's a big deal). I also got some soil but apparently HD discontinued using the organic MG and replaced it with some compressed mostly coconut coir and peatmoss blend which is crap for putting in my soil, so I got Kellog's Amend which has..chicken manure in it. Did I mention how hot it was outside? Whew! I luckily remembered an old moving dolly parked by the garden and used that to haul the soil and hose to the garden. Still not an easy thing since the sidewalks are right next to the buildings where people's front doors are. Had to go cross country on the lawn hoping the soil didn't fall off. I had to strip my shirt off when I got home and do a quick wash down and am now cooling off before going back to the garden and hooking up the new hose.

Amending will happen tomorrow. I got the beds watered including the non planted one because the soil will mix easier with damp soil rather than bone dry. despite what most people do, The fertilizer in the soil already works better if it is damp most of the time. Hence keeping the fallow bed dampened.

50' hose is perfect length as I figured. Had a moment of doubt it was long enough before I uncurled it but damn if I wasn't right about the length. You can see the dolly handles on the other side of the lemon bush on the left, worked pretty dang well. 2 cu ft bag is about 40 lbs which is my limit for lifting at this point. I would not have been able to carry it all the way from the car except on my shoulder and ladies and gents, that would have meant a full on shower when I got in the house.

So here's the ingredients list: Compost (rice hulls, recycled forest products, arbor fines, dairy manure, poultry manure), gypsum, dehydrated poultry manure, hydrolyzed feather meal. Can you say stinky on top of stinky? Oh and the pH is about neutral at 6.3-7. It has gypsum in it which helps to keep things neutral and helps break up the soil eventually. I will be looking at some new gloves for sure since the only ones I have now are knitted moving gloves. I need rubber coated work gloves like I had at HD or some leather. Though it would be nice to be able to wash them...will see.

The other problem with it being so stinky is I am not sure whether it will draw animals in or chase them away. I know dogs would love to roll in it due to the manure just not sure about the cats in the neighborhood.

Too drained to type much else. Will have pictures of the process tomorrow.