Discovering Photosynthesis

Episode 5 | Host: Tiffany McCoy | Published: December 18, 2025 | Runtime: 5:32

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About This Episode

It's the most important chemical reaction on Earth — and most of us learned it as a formula and immediately forgot it. In this episode, Tiffany takes photosynthesis out of the textbook and puts it back where it belongs: in the leaf, the garden, and the food on your plate. From a 17th-century scientist who weighed a willow tree to the ancient cellular event that changed all life on Earth, this episode makes the science of photosynthesis genuinely fascinating. Because when you understand it, you'll never look at a plant the same way again.

What You'll Learn

Why Jan van Helmont's 1648 willow tree experiment was centuries ahead of its time

How Nicolas de Saussure (1804) proved water is an essential ingredient in photosynthesis

Joseph Priestley's 1771 discovery: plants produce the oxygen we breathe

How Robert Mayer connected sunlight to stored chemical energy — the law of conservation of energy

Why chlorophyll is the plant's solar panel and how it was finally classified

Endosymbiosis — the prehistoric 'acquisition' that created the chloroplast and changed all life on Earth

How photosynthesis and cellular respiration form a perfect planet-sized exchange system between plants and animals

Why fossil fuels are really just ancient, compressed packages of captured sunlight

The full photosynthesis equation and what each part actually means

The Photosynthesis Equation

• 6CO₂ + 12H₂O + light energy → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ + 6H₂O
• Carbon dioxide + Water + Light → Glucose + Oxygen + Water

Scientists & Discoveries Mentioned

Jan van Helmont (1648) — plant mass comes from water, not soil

Joseph Priestley (1771) — plants produce oxygen

Nicolas Théodore de Saussure (1804) — water is an essential reactant

Robert Mayer (1845) — sunlight stored as chemical energy (conservation of energy)

20th century — chlorophyll classified as the key photosynthetic pigment

About Your Host

Tiffany McCoy is the host of Show-Me Horticulture and founder of the Show-Me Horticulture pilot farm in northeast Missouri. She is pursuing a B.S. in Sustainable Horticulture at Unity Environmental University and is passionate about connecting people to the food they grow. Every episode is rooted in real Missouri gardens, practical growing advice, and the community that makes local food so meaningful.

Connect With Show-Me Horticulture

Email: showmehorticulture@gmail.com

Instagram & Facebook: @ShowMeHorticulture

Podcast: Spotify & YouTube — search Show-Me Horticulture

📦 CSA Sign-Up: show-me-horticulture.polsia.app/#/csa

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Spotify or YouTube — it helps more Missouri gardeners find the show! 🌱

Native Plants, Native Pride!

Episode 4 | Host: Tiffany McCoy | Published: November 22, 2025 | Runtime: 9:40

Listen to Show-Me Horticulture on Spotify & YouTube

About This Episode

If you've been battling the same old weeds and the same tired boxwoods, this episode is for you. Tiffany dives into twenty minutes of fast facts and local stories that will fundamentally change how you view your Missouri landscape. She makes the case for ditching high-maintenance non-natives and embracing the thriving, resilient beauty that defines the Show-Me State — from Missouri's 900+ native bee species to the legend of the Sassafras tree to the forgotten fruit that foragers are rediscovering.

What You'll Learn

• Why Missouri hosts over 900 native bee species — and why they're specialists that need native plants to survive
• The ecological desert hiding in plain sight: your lawn, and what to plant instead (Little Bluestem!)
• Why Monarchs can't survive without Milkweed — and what you can do about it right now
• The legend of the Sassafras tree — from Ozark folk medicine to one of the New World's first exports
• Why Sassafras has THREE different leaf shapes on the same tree and what wildlife depends on it
• The Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) — why you should never cut it back in fall
• The Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) — Missouri's forgotten native fruit and how to grow it

Native Plants Featured

• Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) — drought-tough prairie grass with 10-foot roots
• Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) — the Monarch butterfly's only host plant
• Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) — three leaf shapes, spectacular fall color, Spicebush Swallowtail host
• Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) — goldfinch magnet, leave seed heads standing all winter
• Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) — largest native fruit in North America, forest understory grower

About Your Host

Tiffany McCoy is the host of Show-Me Horticulture and founder of the Show-Me Horticulture pilot farm in northeast Missouri. She is pursuing a B.S. in Sustainable Horticulture at Unity Environmental University and is passionate about connecting people to the food they grow. Every episode is rooted in real Missouri gardens, practical growing advice, and the community that makes local food so meaningful.

Connect With Show-Me Horticulture

Email: showmehorticulture@gmail.com

Instagram & Facebook: @ShowMeHorticulture

Podcast: Spotify & YouTube — search Show-Me Horticulture

📦 CSA Sign-Up: show-me-horticulture.polsia.app/#/csa

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Spotify or YouTube — it helps more Missouri gardeners find the show! 🌱

The Roots of Missouri Gardening

Episode 3 | Host: Tiffany McCoy | Published: November 5, 2025 | Runtime: 6:39

Listen to Show-Me Horticulture on Spotify & YouTube

About This Episode

Every flower bed, every backyard tomato patch, every native prairie restoration has a story beneath the soil. In this episode, Tiffany digs deep — into the historical, ecological, and cultural roots of gardening in Missouri. From the Indigenous Three Sisters planting systems to the Victory Gardens of World War II, from the clay-rich loam of central Missouri to the rocky Ozark soils that shaped an entirely different kind of plant community — this episode explores what it truly means to garden in the Show-Me State.

What You'll Learn

• How Indigenous peoples like the Osage, Missouria, and Illini practiced sophisticated companion planting thousands of years ago
• The 'Three Sisters' system — corn, beans, and squash — and why it still works today
• How European settlers adapted their farming to Missouri's unique clay, loam, and limestone soils
• The role of garden societies, agricultural fairs, and Victory Gardens in shaping Missouri's gardening culture
• Why Missouri sits at a crossroads of ecosystems — prairie, Ozark forest, and river valley — and what that means for gardeners
• How native prairie grasses like Big Bluestem send roots 10+ feet deep, building soil and sequestering carbon
• The movement to preserve heirloom seeds and why each seed is a time capsule of Missouri history
• How modern Missouri gardeners are blending Indigenous ecological knowledge with contemporary soil science

About Your Host

Tiffany McCoy is the host of Show-Me Horticulture and founder of the Show-Me Horticulture pilot farm in northeast Missouri. She is pursuing a B.S. in Sustainable Horticulture at Unity Environmental University and is passionate about connecting people to the food they grow. Every episode is rooted in real Missouri gardens, practical growing advice, and the community that makes local food so meaningful.

Connect With Show-Me Horticulture

Email: showmehorticulture@gmail.com

Instagram & Facebook: @ShowMeHorticulture

Podcast: Spotify & YouTube — search Show-Me Horticulture

📦 CSA Sign-Up: show-me-horticulture.polsia.app/#/csa

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on Spotify or YouTube — it helps more Missouri gardeners find the show! 🌱