Spring salad bowl

Salads are the glory of spring!

Gardeners know that salad crops are among the easiest, most productive to grow, and that spring brings some of the most delicious ingredients. A small plot or even a few containers can produce the makings of many a spring salad.

We can grow lettuce, arugula, spinach, cress, mustard greens, as well as young leaves of kale, beet and chard. But we can also grow quick crops of radish and green onion. Longer-range planning lets us add carrots, beets and snap peas.

While we wait for our summer tomato crop, our spring salads needn’t be all green. Even the “greens” themselves offer color variety. One of my favorites is ‘Ruby Streaks’ mustard, which has lacy burgundy leaves. Some lettuces also are partly or entirely burgundy. Want more color in your spring salad? Sliced radishes will add white with flashes of red; shredded carrot adds curls of orange.

Edible flowers are another resource, including blossoms of yellow, orange, blue or lavender. Another trick is to add sliced stems of chard. Some varieties include leaf stems of red, orange, yellow and pink, so the scattered bits of stem create a colorful confetti (see picture).

Red beets will color your other ingredients, so use them judiciously. You can grate them raw and let them color a shredded-beet salad. Or arrange steamed or roasted beets on a plate with other ingredients, without mixing. Yellow beets won’t stain your mixed salad, but gardeners sometimes find they have irregular seed germination and are weaker plants.