Grow Stuff That's Easy...Not Hard!

Every good gardener has a few favorites: sure-fire hits that produce beautiful blossoms, foliage or tasty veggies.

Grow what works!

Some of my favorites are spinach, onions or a beautiful lantana.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever failed planting these winners.

You can't eat lantana, so I'll talk about onions and spinach. Our onions went in the ground about  a month or so ago. Here in Texas, you put spinach in around October or November, coax it through the winter, fence it off from bunnies and cover it from the occasional frost, and we're ready to eat now, in February!

Losers? I've had plenty. Let's just call them "failed experiments." But if you're new to the garden, those failures might make you think you have a "Black Thumb." (no such thing.) Even us veteran gardeners get discouraged, and discouragement leads you to ignoring your garden, which leads to failure. Rule #2: avoid failure, so avoid things that are hard to grow.

Unfortunately, there's one vegetable everybody wants to grow, but very tough to succeed with here in Texas: the tomato.    I know, I want to grow tomatoes too! We'll address some suggestions on how when it's closer to planting time. I'm not saying don't try, I'm just saying grow the easy stuff first! Fortunately, Mother Nature agrees, so while we're just dreaming about tomatoes, we can eat spinach and onions.

The good news for friends and family up north: you can plant spinach and onions soon, and even us Texans can still plant onions.

THE BEST PART OF VEGETABLE GARDENING: EATING

Here's one of our faves from the garden this time of year. I grew everything but the mushrooms and bacon!

Shields' Spinach Salad (say that 3 times fast)

8 cups of fresh spinach, stems removed
2-3 green onions - diced
Mushrooms "sliced to a T"

3 hard boiled eggs, grated
8 slices of fried or microwaved bacon, crumbled

Dressing:

3 T bacon grease (you gotta love any recipe that starts there!)

3T olive oil
1 clove crushed garlic

2 T red wine vinegar

1 t salt

1 t dry mustard

1 t sugar

1/2 t seasoned pepper
blend the ingredients, toss it over the "hard stuff" and don't call me late for lunch!