After a long, cold winter of eating from the cold storage and the freezer, nothing tastes better than a fresh salad.  Greens are my tonic, giving me energy and vitality.  I eat salads lunch and dinner and throw greens into quesadillas, soups, eggs, and more.

I always plant an early crop of hearty greens. The beauty is that these greens can withstand freezing so you do not need to wait until the danger of frost has passed.  This year due to the early thaw I planted some greens on the south side of the house in February. The ground was still frozen underneath, but the hearty greens and the lettuce still came up. 

But the older I get, the more I appreciate food that I don’t have to sow.  I have several varieties of perennial greens as well as some self-seeding annuals. These are brilliant because they come up whenever they are ready. You don’t have to stress about planting them at the right time, or at all. They just take care of themselves. You probably already have some of these in your garden, and right now is the perfect time to plant the ones you don’t have.

• Orach. Red, purple or green, orach is a relative of spinach and self-seeds readily in the garden. It has a very mild flavor and can be eaten fresh or cooked. The purple variety looks awesome in salads, and the green variety can be used as a straight-up substitute for spinach. 
• Lamb’s-quarter. Another relative of spinach, you...