If you have Irish ancestry, as I do, you might go all out on St. Patrick’s Day. Maybe you wear green and place shamrocks in your hair.

Possibly you add green food coloring to the milk for a green treat in the breakfast cereal (someone once told me they did this.)

Or maybe you just let loose and do the Irish jig (this is my choice and for some reason I prefer to do the dance alone on the dining room table.)

But however you celebrate the day, you might want to consider this: If it weren’t for a sick crop of plants, there’s a good chance you’d be celebrating in Ireland and not America.

History took a sideways turn in 1845. That year Irish farmers had every reason to think their soon-to-be potato crop would reap plentiful benefits. Their potatoes grew unusually large. But a mysterious blight moved in and struck the Irish potato crop with an affliction that rotted the potatoes into a slimy mass.

The disease, potato late blight, caused widespread famine and resulted in the emigration of 1.5 million people from Ireland to the United States and Canada. Possibly your ancestors.

A less dramatic plant disease, coffee rust, also impacted our American culture. It’s responsible for America’s coffee addiction.

In the 1860s, the fungal disease hit coffee plantations in Ceylon (presently Sri Lanka.) Ceylon was the primary source of coffee for England.

The British back then chose coffee as their favorite boiled beverage. But when the coffee rust epidemic wiped out the coffee crops, plantation owners planted tea in its place and coffee became very difficult to obtain.

The English decided to modify their preference of beverage and began sipping tea.

That’s the reason you now look forward to enjoying a ‘spot of tea’ when you travel to England and not a ‘spot of joe.’

Just think, if the American Patriots hadn’t dumped England’s tea in the Boston Harbor we would be a nation of tea lovers. Employees would look forward to their 15 minute tea breaks. And we’d have a “Teabucks” on every corner where we’d order a ‘double tall ‘la-tea’ instead latté.

But switching from coffee-drinking to tea-sipping probably wasn’t on the minds of Puritans during the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s. Maybe it should have been.

It’s now believed that an evil fungus commonly found on grains of rye had a hand in the odd behavior of Puritans who suddenly acted strange and witch-like. The hypothesis is the fungus, Claviceps purpurea, caused ergot poisoning and might have been the culprit behind the witchcraft hysteria.

When ingested, the fungus brings on manic melancholia, psychosis, delirium, crawling sensations of the skin, vertigo and headaches.

Colonial women probably ground the infected rye grains into flour.

All of the accused so-called witches exhibited symptoms of ergot poisoning. Symptoms that gave the impression they were possessed by the devil.

A 1976 science article by Linnda R. Caporael provides compelling, although circumstantial, evidence that the Salem Witch Trials coincided with a weather period that would have produced large quantities of ergot on rye. The men and women believed to be witches not only faced imprisonment, but by 1692 at least 20 were put to death for their crimes.

Although plant diseases, such as these, have had profound effects on our history, they can also have a profound affect on our gardens. Plant diseases, in addition to insects or poor gardening practices, contribute to a sad-looking garden.

Gardeners often have the first instinct to “spray” their diseased plants as a quick fix. But Samantha Maykut at the Natural Lawn and Garden Hotline in Seattle suggests caution before using chemicals right away.

“Be really careful and don’t assume spraying is the solution,” she says. “Nine times out of 10, it’s the care you’re giving it or the location it’s in. You can bomb it until the cows come home but it won’t fix the problem.”

Before you spray, check out the following resources to help sort through possible causes, solutions and diagnoses for your unhealthy plant:

• WSU/King County Master Gardener Plant Clinics. Clinics will be held throughout the Puget Sound region this spring.

A local plant clinic in our area will be at Home Depot in Bothell, running April through June on Wednesdays, 9:30 a.m.– 1:30 p.m. and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. It will also run Sept. 7–24.

• Natural Lawn and Garden Hotline at (206) 633-0224. Friendly staff will answer your plant, composting, lawn questions.
• Molbak’s has a knowledgeable staff that will diagnose your plant problem and offer solutions which may include pruning or pinching back to increase side branching, repotting to improve root growth and improved soil management.

As the spring season brings increased sunlight, Molbak’s staff may recommend fertilizing to improve plant growth. Molbak’s also offers a great spring line-up of free gardening classes. www.molbaks.com.

• Seattle Tilth Office, Good Shepherd Center, 464 Sunnyside Ave. N. Rm. 120, Seattle, WA 98103 open M-F, 10 am to 4 pm. Offers classes on natural gardening and children’s programs. Call 206-633-0451 or check out www.seattletilth.org.
• E-mail: take a photo of your sick plant and list its growing conditions and e-mail to info@lawnandgardenhotline.org.
• Online: go to the Web site http://Pep.WSU.edu/Hortsense/ or Google WSU-Hortsense. This Web site offers help for common plant problems.
• Finally, always try to get a second opinion.

Now — go out and do the Irish jig.