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. Most of us have probably grown cilantro, for instance, with its distinctive tasting bright green foliage. But I suspect few of us have harvested coriander seed, the other possible crop, that same species of plant can yield. Today's guests, serically griff adaptive seeds, has been adding coriander and various other spice rack possibilities to her garden and farm and seed catalog, like anis and caraway and more. All plants that are also ornamental and, beloved, by the creatures she calls our garden friends from beneficial

insects to birds. More in a moment about some to try this year in your own garden, 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. by High Mohing Seeds. to Whiteflower Farm, offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants.

On the web whiteflower farm dot com. In 2009, Sarah Cleager and Andrew Still founded Adaptive Seeds, their certified organic, farm-based seed company near Sweet Home Oregon whose mission is to steward rare, diverse, and resilient seed varieties for ecologicallyologically minded farmers, gardeners, and seed savers. All their varieties are open-pollinated and adapted to the Pacific Northwest and other short season northern climates including selections of some garden grown spice rack favorites that are our topic today. Welcome back to the program Sarah, so good to talk to you again. Yeah, thank you. I'm so

happy to be here. Yes, all the way from Oregon. And as I sort of alluded to in the introduction, most of us grow herbs in, you know, basil and dill and cilantro and parsley and such. But when it comes to the seeds that fill many of those jars in the spice rack, maybe not so much. What got you started thinking about these. Well, you know, I mean, as a seed grower, like everything I grow is for seed, right? So that's just sort of my background and I'm always looking at things from the seed perspective. So we kind of started adding like some mustard seed just from like regular leafy green mustard, not the yellow mustard, but adding that to our pantry. And as you mentioned, I think cilantro slash coriander is one that's very easy and probably like an entry level sort of spice for people to add. And that one's in just so many different cuisines that it's like kind of a no-brainer. Yeah, and then it just sort of, you know, every couple of years, like adding more to that, there's just really a lot of opportunity out there that we can grow in temporary gardens, not all things, of course, but. Right. Now you told me recently in an email that these plants aren't just delicious, which of course is part of the attraction, but they have other qualities that you've come to treasure. And as I said in the intro, you said they appeal to our garden friends. So tell us a little bit about that and there are other sort of characteristics that make them good garden subjects, not just proceed for me. Right. Well, so, you know, a lot of the spices in the Sp rack are in the umbiliferate family, right? They're carrot relatives. And so they have their flowers, are these great like compound sort of umbrellas of many, many little small flowers and they can bloom over a long period of time. and they're just really appealing to not only

honey bees, but also lots of smaller pollinators like surf with flies and sweat bees and ones that are not necessarily as popular or well known, but that are really important ecologically. So, the, you know, Dill is another one along with the cilantro that is like a lot of gardeners grow this for the herb for the leafy green part, but then if we let it grow to go to flower and beyond then then we're gifted with and also our garden friends are gifted with a source of forage and shelter and all of these other things and also you know I think they're quite beautiful especially like the stacking and they grow different heights compared to other garden plants so yeah it's it's really kind of amazing and we've been growing, right?

So, Dill and cilantro, pretty obvious. Caraway is another one that's in that family. Not quite as flashy, but still has that same sort of flower type. And then Fennel, of course, which, you know, those plants get really tall and, flower type and then fennel of course which you know those plants get really tall and in our garden their wasps are what are are mostly pollinating our fennel and right and if you start early in the spring then there's there's this kind of progression through the season where there can sort of always be something flowering there. Right, right. So the insistency with the nectar is also important for beneficial insects. So the cilantro, again, easy to grow pretty quick. You know, I always do succession because it isn't last forever. You know, I sewed a couple of times during the season. But for the, for getting seed, you have a particular variety. It's not the same green leafed variety that you're listing to grow. Soloncho, you have one that's specifically for seed. You've selected it or you have identified it as a good seed producing variety, yes? Right. Yeah, that's Ken Chenaburi coriander and that's a variety that we picked up in Thailand and it was selected not by us, but by the generations of seed stews that came before. and and it's got it's seed is just a little bit bigger and a little bit

more

flavorful like it's got that sort of lemony undertones

That is a pretty important flavoring in Thai cuisine and you know, they get it in all sorts of places, but

Yeah, so it's so it goes to seed a little bit more quickly and makes the larger seeds as opposed to focusing on the vegetative growth like most cilantro. How's that? When, approximately, do you get seed from that? How far into the season are you from a say spring sowing?

That's a great question. I think a lot of it depends on the timing with when you're planting it. So we plant almost all of our seed crops when we plant pretty much our whole farm, which is over like a two week period in the second half of May. And that's mostly because because that's when our soil can be worked. Sure.

And then the cilantro and coriander seeds are ones that come in like in August probably. So yeah, I don't have the specific days to maturity, but it is a little quicker than Pension Embry Coriander one is a little bit faster to make seed bit faster to make seed Yeah, and so then I was surprised Another flavor that people either like or don't like just like cilantro and coriander, but but you have Anus Pimponella is the genus I guess right and I you know that's that's another one you, people and Italian cookies and you know, lots of different, especially like you say you mentioned in the catalog. I think, you know, especially look yours, you know, uh, oozoo, right? Yeah, so that, that sort of liquoricey kind of flavor. I didn't, I don't know that I've seen it growing, but yeah, so that's another one and how about that one? You just sort of... Yeah, I mean, you know, that one, it's... That is the one that made me feel like, oh Margaret, this is, we got to talk about spice rags and pollinators because this is one that we've just started to grow more recently. And actually, I'm hear you say it first Anis because of course there is the like anis or anise. I know I have no idea what I've always said anise whatever I think you have anise also but okay that's two of us but yeah this past year when we grew it it was our second time growing. And the plants are not quite as showy, but we were walking through the gardens and found there's an anus swallowtail butterfly that's native to a lot of the west coast. And, you know, just their fat caterpillars were just all over this plant. And, you know, we have tiger swallowtails as another swallow tail that we have here and they're and they're fairly common and I up to that moment was unaware that we also had the anus swallow tails and so I was like oh this is this is a nursery crop for a really beautiful kind of special native species of butterfly as well.

And, you know, to the point that they're called, kind of, swallow tails. Right. They can also go for fennel. But, um, Right. But if you plat it, they will come. You know, it's sort of interesting. Isn't it? Doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, that's the kind of stuff that just leaves me breathless, speechless in the garden. so off how do they find it but they do.

Yeah, no, I mean it was incredible and you know and it's an abundant seed yielder especially for how much I use it in the garden which is or in the kitchen which is not that much if I'm being honest but it is a plant that I am going to grow every year now now Now that I know that we have this garden friend who sort of prefers it and you know I want to do what I can in my gardens and in my fields to sort of encourage the biodiversity of not only plants, right, but also the animals and insects. and everybody else. So that's another one. So Anis, that's another one. I think in the catalog listing, it says that's a 75 day, it's an annual, that one is an annual, yes. Yes, it is. Yeah, most of these are annual. And so that's, I think, the other, like, another interesting and kind of fun part of it like a lot of if we're looking at

herbs right those are more perennial and pretty fabulous like you could just plant it once and grab your rosemary right in time and oregano and this kind of stuff right right yeah yeah but these are it are all annuals and if you you know if you do plant them and then you take them to the spice rack then you also conveniently have your seeds for replanting the next season.

Um, oh that's true. That's funny. That's funny. That's funny. That's like harvesting beans as dry beans and then saying, oh, I've got some beans left from last year's harvest. I think I'll plant them. Right. Right. Yeah. Right. Exactly. My crop is two purposes. Exactly. When the seed is the crop, that's our favorite anyway. And so then you also sort of branched out into caraway as well, you grow in caraway. And I think that's usually a biennial, isn't it, is that? I think it usually is, but we found one that's been more selected for annual production.

Ah, good. Yeah. It did take us like a couple of years, it's taken us a couple of years to like get the timing right and the spacing. But yeah, that Caraway is one that we're now like able to get a pretty dependable yield from and you know, they're Caraway and the Anas andill kind of all they're they're smaller plants so they can actually be spaced like much closer together um and you know and therefore like create like a more visually appealing like denser sort of um yeah arrangement or whatever in the garden and then right the yield the yield is better. And they're white-flowered? Are they white-flowered? Yeah. They are. Almost all of these are white-flopped kind of lacy, like almost like inslase kind of or wild-total and sort of looking with just different sizes. And I mean, I don't need like a 40 foot row or something

to get enough because again, we're using these

with anus for instance.

It's not like I need 10 pounds.

Right.

...