The very first ever episode of Clippings deserves a momentous garden activity. But ya know what? Sometimes a girl's gotta ease into things. The cats and I venture outside to fertilize our younger trees and bushes.

Want to see pics from the garden? Instagram: @freshclippings

Show art by Alison McKenzie

Production guidance from Evan Roberts

Episode music from Blue Dot Sessions:

Our Son the Potter (Love and Weasel)

Pigpaddle Creek (Sour Mash)

Bossa Boa (High Horse)

We're going to stop and try it again without the

cat coming in the cat door.

Oh no, they can't.

Second cat is coming in.

Come on.

You guys are messing up my take.

Just be cool.

welcome to clippings.

This is a gardening podcast from an enthusiastic, but remarkably, un-

expert gardener me I'm Topher Burns.

And it doesn't matter if you are an expert or just kind of garden curious.

The whole point of this podcast is.

We get outside and we spend some time together.

My cats are probably going to join me too.

Today, we are going to be doing some fertilizing.

It's early in the season and I've got some recently planted younger

trees and bushes that will appreciate a little springtime snack as they

start to wake up for the season.

So come on, let's get outside.

Oh, it's a gorgeous day.

It was hailing this morning.

But the weather seems to have gotten its act together.

If I could just stand here, soaking it up, but let's feed some trees.

Okay.

I'm going to probably fertilize my fig tree and our persimmon

and maybe my umbrella.

All these are kind of young, um, established trees.

You don't really need to worry about, but for younger trees, giving them a boost

of nutrients and encouraging them to grow after the frost date is important.

If you do it before the frost date, they might start growing things

that can be like growing more roots or even like little, uh, tender

leaf buds and stuff like that.

That can be harmed by frost.

So you don't want to wake them up with nutrients until you're sure that

you're past the frost date, okay, so, uh, fertilizer, um, I really like

using just basic fish fertilizer.

It has good nutrients.

Um, but it's pretty, it's nothing fancy.

There are like fertilizers per kind of plants that people use.

Um, but fish is a good fertilizer as an all purpose one.

It's also great because, um, it's natural and it's not too aggressive.

The.

The reason that like fertilizers can be a problem, especially if you use

too much of them is a lot of it's chemical based, uh, that can get into

the water supplies, but also, um, it can be really damaging to the.

Ecosystem that's in your soil.

You need to think about the fact that there's actually two gardens

going on in your garden at one time.

There's the garden that you see everything above ground.

And then there's an entirely equal and super flourishing ecosystem that happens

below ground with worms and insects.

And.

Fungus's, uh, it's just, there's so much going on and a healthy underground is

important for a healthy above ground.

So fertilizers can be really harmful and kind of burn a lot of that stuff.

It can also affect, you know, like the delicate little roots

of trees and things like that.

So I don't like to fertilize too aggressively, but it is nice to

start things off, um, with, uh, well, I'm opening it up now.

Oh, I mean, you know, it's actually little appetizing, maybe it's fishy.

It's really fishy.

Yeah.

I dunno if I'm disgusted or if I want sushi after this.

Oh man.

No, I definitely am disgusted.

Okay.

Uh, I'm going to get some water.

We're going to dilute this thing and then, uh, We'll take it around and give a few

meals to our happy little juvenile trees.

Hey Ags, you want some fish fertilizer?

Yeah, you do.

I had no idea what I was going to mix all this stuff in.

And I remember that I kept this massive can of that.

I used when I made pozole.

It's a big, yeah.

It's like a half bucket,

shake up

stuff on mix.

okay.

Preaching at you about, I have to be exact and judicious with your fertilizer.

This is to measure two tablespoons of this thing for every gallon.

And, you know, I just don't feel like putting this goop on an actual

tablespoon, so I'm going to eyeball it.

And that looks like about two.

Let's do two more because I'm probably going to do at

least four gallons of water.

And then let's dilute the essence and water.

Um,

okay.

I have got what is basically a bouillabaisse fish soup for my fig tree.

you get a little guy

happy spring.

We're going to repeat this process for the umbrella pine as well.

Saw this umbrella pine is a friend that is very special to me.

We got it in Brooklyn.

And then.

When we moved from Brooklyn to Portland, it was a really tough decision about

leaving some of our plants behind, you know, and had them for years.

Um, and the umbrella pine was really the one friend that I just

couldn't see leaving without, they're just really majestic plants.

This one's still a young one and actually they'll be considered, it'll be considered

young until it's like a hundred years old.

They live really long.

And they have these gorgeous, like, you know, two inch long pine needles.

I just think they're so beautiful.

So anyway, we didn't quite know how to get it out here.

So we ended up just going to ups and the lady was like, well, you're not

allowed to mail plants, overstate lines.

And I basically just said, please, and she was cool with it.

So she packed up a tree and then we sent it cross country while

we moved the rest of our stuff.

And

before we had even bought a kitchen table or anything like that, I, uh,

put this plant.

And so it's kind of our first, the first major like gardening decision I

made was putting this thing in, so, oh man, the cats are going crazy for this.

It's just a fish stew and they're so excited.

Well, there's nothing really to eat if they're.

They definitely want to figure out how to get some of this.

I don't know if it's good for you.

Okay, I'm going to do a little bit more fertilizing in the front yard.

We've got a new Dogwood we put in recently, and there's also

a persimmon that had a little bit of a tough season last year.

And my husband, Jake said, if things don't pick up, he wants to get rid of it.

So we've got to give it a little bit of a.

I've actually got an enormous amount of really cool stuff

planned for this growing season.

Um, I'm going to put in a hummingbird garden, I've got a

lawn and they don't love lawns.

So I need to figure something to do with that.

And I'm saying to tell you about the Victorian Moonlight garden theme

that I have going on in the backyard.

So lots to go over.

If you want to see pictures of the garden, we are fresh clippings on Instagram.

Join me there to ask questions, share tips that you have about stuff that we're going

through, or send me your own plant pecs.

Anyway, thanks for joining me in the garden.

I'm Topher burns.

This is clippings lesson.

On the next episode of clippings, you know, we may have just

met, but I'm ready to take this relationship to the next level.

That's right.

I want you to meet my.