Growing Together: A Gardening Podcast · Forum Communications Co.

Celebrating the plants of the Emerald Isle ☘️

·31 min·1 clip

Late blight caused the Irish potato famine, and over a million people died.

1. Growing Together: A Gardening Podcast uses the Emerald Isle as a St. Patrick’s Day lens for Irish plants, food, and garden history. 2. John Lamb hosts with Don Kinsler, a lifelong gardener and North Dakota State University Extension horticulturist for Cass County, so the episode mixes local gardening knowledge with plant lore. 3. The episode asks what Ireland’s plants, crops, and symbols reveal about St. Patrick’s Day beyond parades and green decorations. 4. Don reads Chris’s email about a night-blooming cereus she has kept for 15 years, and he says it blooms a couple of times a year. 5. Chris says the plant had 11 blooms in one week, that each bloom lasts one night, and that the flowers start wilting about 12 hours after opening. 6. Don and John describe the bloom as looking like fireworks, a sparkler, or a trumpet-shaped flower, and they note the plant smells incredible. 7. Don says botanists call the plant ugly, which makes the dramatic bloom feel even more surprising. 8. The discussion turns to four-leaf clovers, and Don says they are mutations that occur at roughly one in 5,000 plants. 9. Don traces the phrase “luck of the Irish” to the U.S. gold rush era, where Irish miners were credited with luck instead of hard work or skill. 10. Don explains that shamrock comes from an Irish word meaning young clover, which connects the plant directly to Irish identity. 11. Don and John talk through the Irish potato famine, which they place around 1845 to 1860 and tie to about two million people leaving Ireland. 12. Don says the Irish relied heavily on potatoes for food and livestock feed because a small area could produce a large crop and the tubers stored well. 13. Don names the Irish lumper as the potato variety most associated with that dependence and compares the monoculture to problems seen in elm and ash trees. 14. Don says late blight rotted the tubers, stayed in the soil, and had no fungicides or preventatives available at the time. 15. Don and John connect the famine to Irish immigration into the United States and to the later St. Patrick’s Day traditions that grew here. 16. Don says Irish food traditions often come from poverty and survival, which is why dishes like colcannon center on potatoes, cabbage, and ham. 17. Don gives a specific estimate that the average Irish person may have eaten about 60 pounds of cabbage a year. 18. The episode has an informal, conversational rhythm, with John asking questions, Don answering from horticulture and history, and a short news-break midstream. 19. Gardeners interested in Irish plants, potato history, and St. Patrick’s Day traditions would likely enjoy this episode. 20. Listeners looking for fast entertainment without plant history or food context might skip it.

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