From the Ground Up: Know Your Soil & Start Your Seeds

Episode 6 | Host: Tiffany McCoy | Show-Me Horticulture | Released: 5/14/26 | Est. Runtime: 8–11 min

Episode

6 — From the Ground Up: Know Your Soil & Start Your Seeds

Host

Tiffany McCoy — Show-Me Horticulture

Release Date

May 14, 2026

Listen

Show-Me Horticulture on Spotify & YouTube

Soil Testing

MU Extension — contact your local county office

CSA Sign-Up

showmehorticulture.com

About This Episode

Every great Missouri garden starts the same way — in the soil and in the seed tray. In this episode, Tiffany McCoy digs into the two fundamentals that set the whole growing season up for success: knowing your soil and starting your seeds right. From understanding Missouri's clay-heavy soils and the power of a simple soil test, to the exact supplies and steps needed to grow strong seedlings indoors, this episode gives you everything you need to build a thriving garden from the ground up.

Whether you're a first-time gardener or coming back after a tough season, this episode will change how you think about what happens before anything even goes in the ground.

What You'll Learn

• Why Missouri soil varies so much across the state — clay, loam, and Ozark limestone explained

• What a soil test actually tells you and why pH is the master dial of plant nutrition

• The three things that improve any Missouri soil: organic matter, minimal tillage, and mulch

• Why you need seed starting mix — not potting soil — and what happens when you use the wrong one

• The light, warmth, and moisture conditions seedlings actually need indoors

• How to sow seeds, care for emerging seedlings, and know when to pot up

• What hardening off is and why skipping it can set your plants back by weeks

Resources Mentioned

• 🌱 MU Extension Soil Testing — contact your local county extension office for kits under $20

• 📦 Show-Me Horticulture CSA — launching June 2026, $299/season

• Farmers Market at Fieldhouse 54 — 1st & 3rd Saturdays, 8am–12pm

Mentioned in This Episode

• Peppers Workshop — 1st Sundays of the month, 6–8pm online

• 📦 Show-Me Horticulture CSA — launching June 2026, $299/season

• Farmers Market at Fieldhouse 54 — 1st & 3rd Saturdays, 8am–12pm, Now through November

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: showmehorticulture.com

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

Discovering Photosynthesis

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

Listen to Show-Me Horticulture on Spotify & YouTube

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! 🌱