Lake House

I have childhood memories of spending a week each summer at my grandfather's lake house in southern Wisconsin. It was a rustic place, nothing fancy, but it was a kid's dream, right on the lakefront, with a short wooden dock. There was electricity but no indoor plumbing and using an outhouse was a novelty for a suburban girl from the east.

Long days, popsicles dripping, swimming off the pier, running barefoot, fishing. 

Grandpa fished and we ate what he caught. He got perch, something we called sunfish that might have been bluegills, and other small bony fish that my grandmother cooked and we ate, although I absolutely drew the line at her fish head soup with the eyes looking up at me between the onions. Nope.

This summer I have been reminiscing about the lake house a lot. There was just something that reminded me of fragrant, humid summer lake days whenever I sat outside on my deck in the dry air of Santa Fe.

It dawned on me finally that it was the smell. I have been fertilizing my containers and garden plants a lot this year, finally realizing that my watering and fertilizing efforts in past years have been pathetically inadequate.

I've been using liquid fish fertilizer, diluted in a watering can and generously -- very generously -- poured all over my plants every few weeks.

It smells like fish and it lingers in the landscape. Not a rotting, icky odor, but a clean, summer lake house smell. Not entirely pleasant, but very evocative of Grandpa and Wisconsin and algae in the water and fresh fish scales on the bench by the outhouse where he cleaned his catch.

Fish fertilizer has made a difference. This year, for example, the Karl Foerster upright grasses under the kitchen window were tall and graceful in mid July. I gave them a lot of liquid love all spring and early summer, even though the smell came in the window over the sink.

This year

Last year on exactly the same day in mid July they looked puny -- one never even flowered.

Same grasses last year

Almost everything in my garden and in my patio pots looks fuller this year. In our searingly dry sunny climate the pots need water every single day and that washes out any nutrients. They need a lot of frequent fertilizer to restore the potting soil.

The same thing happens with the in-ground shrubs and perennials. Dry soil wicks away what irrigation they get, and native soil has few nutrients. They need a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, and shrubs and trees need iron, which I supplement too.

I did use fertilizer in other years, but I just never realized how much to use. Now I know -- when it starts to smell like Grandpa's lake house, I'm on the right track.

Some old blurry Brownie camera photos from the lake, late 1950's: