From away to garden.com and Robinhood Radio.com, this is Away to Garden with Margaret Roach. You're a weekly invitation to dig in and grow. I'm letting myself be transported away from the winter scene outside my window, bearing my nose not in the snow, but instead in the spring into summer possibilities depicted in seed catalog pages. I have familiar favorite varieties I grow every year, but I'm also looking for some new to me possibilities. And today's guest, Lane Salmon of the Culinary Breeding Network at Oregon State University, always has some delicious suggestions. More in a moment, but first, these messages. Underwriting support for a way to garden provided by Colorblends, wholesale flower bulbs. A third-generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, Colorblends.com. And by high-moving seeds, Wolcott Vermont, professional quality Flower, and Erbil Seeds that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified. On the web, highmoengseeds.com and by White Flower Farm offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants. On the web, whiteflowerfarm.com Elaine Selman, a professor of practice at Oregon State University, founded the Culinary Breeding Network in 2012, a collaborative community of plant breeders, seed growers, farmers, produce buyers and chefs collaborating to improve vegetables and grains by creating identifying and promoting outstanding cultivars, especially organic ones. Among Lane's personal plant passions are edibles from Italian culinary traditions, including a diversity of radicchio. And I asked her back to the program today to get her suggestions for our 2026 gardens. Hi Lane, how are you? I am great. Thank you so much for having me. How's that winter out there in the Pacific Northwest? They thinkfully it's sunny and that's nice, but it doesn't mean it's colder. It's still right now in this moment. Very lovely. I'm happy to sit. Good. So is a quick background. Tell us what culinary breeding network is just so that a little more than what I said, just so that people have, you know, kind of an idea of what you do or one of your one of your big activities. Sure. So, I work at Oregon State University as a researcher and a while back, I think you said 2012, but it was earlier than that. I've been working ever since 2005, I've been working with a lot of organic farmers to find varieties that perform really well on their organic farms. So the best suited varieties for them that grow well without chemical assistance in the organic microcosm, like the organic ecosystem. So, and these farmers were all often, you know, they wanted organic seed, they wanted open pollinated varieties, they had a list of things that they wanted, but also one thing they really wanted was great flavor. And so I was working with the plant breeders at Oregon State University and other universities to kind of try to find these varieties that fit. I started doing tastings to kind of get that information from, you know, just to know about varieties because we would grow them out on the farms, we would understand which ones grew really well, performed well, yielded well, didn't get diseases and all the problems that the farmers are trying to avoid. But then it was like, how do they taste? What do they like? And so at that point, I got a lot of chefs involved because I was also working at the farmers market here in Portland, Oregon, asked the chefs to get together to taste these so that they could evaluate them because as like who else, who's the pro at tasting things? Perfect, right? So these are all the chefs that also already bought from local farms and they're already in it. They're very excited to be a part of it. And they evaluated a lot of, and it's at this point, and this moment that this kind of came about, I'm talking about roast like red roasting peppers, which we can talk about later, if you wanna hear my favorite voice. Yes. And so they started, they tasted them and they started sharing with me the things that they really liked about them, not just the ones that had the best flavor and the best texture, which was what I was asking them, but then also like the shape and size that they needed, the straight walls, all these different things that they needed and kind of brought me into like their world and what they do once the vegetables are grown and harvested and they have them in their hands, it's like, oh, there's all these things that they really need. And are they talking to the plant breeders and the folks that are actually making those decisions and they weren't? So basically that's when the culinary breeding network started and I said oh wow This is the bridge that needs to be built, right? This is the gap that there is where the the plant breeding world It which is often for a good reason in isolation because of you know pollen having pollen having to keep it isolated, you know, and it's like, it's done away from a lot of people. It's a hidden thing, right? And the chefs and all of us that cook are using these things in the end, right? So I wanted to be able to like bring all these folks together. So the Client Green Network is really about bringing the plant breeders, the seed growers, the farmers, the chefs, and also just consumers all together to kind of explore a value weight. So like I'm oftentimes like working with them to evaluate new and upcoming like in the process of the plant breeding, you know, in the process, and also just to, and I also organize big events that are open to the public so they can actually kind of get to see what this hidden world is. It's like the wisdom behind the curtain, right? Yeah, and it's really, it's really, I mean, for everyone's benefit, that's for sure. So, and I'll give links with the transcript of the show the show over on to guard.com to information about the network and it's some of the events and so forth. So, I don't know where we want to start in I've been beginning to look through the, I say catalog still, but most of them are just websites with the listings on them. I don't know where we want to start. Do we want to start with a particular group of things or any,

you know, what do you think, what are you most excited about or what do you think about? I started when I asked me and immediately went to like leafy greens. So I was like, let's talk about the leaves and things like that first and then maybe the fruits meaning, you know, the things with seeds. Sure. Yeah. So, I mean the first thing that came to mind always is Shimida Rapa, which a lot of people

you live in the East Coast and I feel like it's a little more popular there than on the West Coast. Um, we always see it in grocery stores like Andy Boy, she made a wrap up, aka, you know, broccoli, raw bay. Um, and it's like, uh, and also repeat me, people call it. So we oftentimes just see it there and that's it. Sometimes farmers, I feel like out here grow it. Not a lot, I feel like there's like a really short window for harvest. So I think it's a really great thing to grow in your garden. So I always grow it and I can just have it all the time. So you know, it's it's not you know like a lot of the other brassicas that we eat that are brassica oleracea. This one is actually brassica rapa so it's in the turnip family. It has that strong you know turnip flavor and I really love it. And and so it figures into some of some dishes you like to make. Some some they like to cook. I. Yeah, there's a classic book for, I mean, a dish from Puyah that is Orkate called Chimitarapa and sometimes it has sausage as well. So it's just a pasta where you cook, then you blanch the Chimitarapa and then you saute it like garlic and you use some of the

pasta water that kind of makes it creamy and you put the Orcata in there and it just makes a really lovely simple dish. Put a bunch of Parmesan or Pecorino on it. If you wanted it to have meat with it, you could saute sausage, it's Italian sausage and put it in there. You could put some Calabria and chili paste or whatever, you know, mix it up. But it's like a very delicious meal, I think. And I feel like a lot of times what we find in the

grocery store is a little more mild than what it should be. It's like-

So, we might say if we anglify it, broccoli rob. It's a little milder. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, is that what it is? Yes, yeah. And it's a little milder, a little more mild. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a little more mild. And so you can get, so like uprising seeds has some right now, Brian, a Christina, big fans of it. And I know that they're getting more from the same breeder that I work with with the radicchio stuff. Andrea in Italy has been working with him to have some more options that are available. So there will be some maybe this year but if not in the coming years but at least he has at least two right now. I just love growing that for myself. Okay good. And another leafy green, maybe with some spice or some some some taste to it. We call it wasabi arugula. I love this thing. I feel like I didn't, I don't know where it's it's called a lot of different things, but this is what I see like what and if you do find it at like a garden shop as like a plant or you might as see it's always kind of like wasabi arugula is the name of it. It is this wild green I've seen in Sicily it just like grows everywhere and it's very pungent it does taste like wasabi it's really I just eat it raw just by the fistful I just love it but you could yeah you can make it into a salad. You can put it on top of pizza. It would wilt very quickly, but it's really... As you can see, both of these things are both really strong flavors, but love them. Well, and I think when you're going to put something, like you said, you could put some on top of a pizza, or you're going to put it into a pasta dish. I mean, there's other flavors in there too. You might have your cheeses and so forth and maybe tomato and so it stands up to those. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So wasabi, arugula and uprising, is that another, is this another affair? Yes. Specialties, okay. Okay. Operation or... I've seen it like Renee's garden. I believe has it. Sure, there's in other places too. Okay. Good, good, good. I think on your Instagram, maybe it was. I can't remember for the culinary breeding network. I think I saw an unusual kale recently. Did I? Was it unicorn or something? Yes. So unicorn kale is out this year, which was bred by Phillip Griffiths, who's a breeder at Cornell, and Johnny's is offering it this year for the first time, and it's this really pretty it's this really pretty kale with like very vivid green leaves, and it has bright purple stems, and it's very beautiful. It's supposed to be, I haven't actually tasted it,

but it's supposed to be like kind of succulent texture

and pretty cold hearty.

And I think that the, I say it's like,

you did vivid green and it's almost like,

there's almost like a yellowish cast to the green.

You know what I mean?

It's like not dark green, right?

Yes, yeah.

Yeah, and that's purple, midribs,

or whatever the stems, just gorgeous, right? It's so pretty. That's one thing that he's really into. He, I work on a couple of projects with him, and he's really into fun, like colors, shape, sizes. He does a lot of, like, he, he works a lot with brassicas, but there's so much to play around with in here

and to mix up, you know?

So it's like, there's so much to play around with in here and to mix up, you know. So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like really fun to see so many pretty vegetables out there. Yeah, and I would think this one, they say it's more tender, you know, and not, not so like some of the dark Cales can be really chewy, right? And so I'd I imagine especially when grown to a younger age this would be almost like a delicious salad you know. Exactly. Yeah. It's just an artinder and like a lot of people I know I know they're trying to market it also as not just full kale but like you know baby, baby kale because of that color, a striking color difference so it would be very pretty like yeah, yeah, in a salad, at all the different sizes. You know, okay, it's supposed to keep that tenderness. And I said that I'm sorry, I said it was cold hearty, but it's less cold hearty than those other, the stronger, you know, one, the, okay, kales that you were talking about. So, okay, okay. So, another one. I was thinking before we get into the radicios of course. I was also thinking about

another strong flavor. Mustards, I love musters. And wild garden seed has quite a few mustard. Dragon's tongue is one. That was very purple one. It's just absolutely beautiful and delicious. There's one called horned and they actually just have their pungent mix. Again, of course, I really love pungent things. So this one is a pungent, is like a mixture of all these different, like all of his Frank Morton's breeding material that he has. At Wild Garden Seeds. At Wild Garden Seed, yes. Okay. So some of them, so to try some of these, as well, that's a good idea I have. And you can eat them, you know, baby, bigger, whatever. You know, when they're babies, I just, I was up at a farm in, what are incarnation, Washington, and they had a big patch of it out there.

And I just was just eating it right there

out of the field and couldn't get enough of it. I was like, I don't want him want to do anything with it. I just want to eat it. I think that's a good sign. Okay. Those are the leafy greens that I was thinking about that I really love that I do like to make sure that I have in my, you know, I put in my garden every year

because I want them and they're harder things to find.

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