Miner's Lettuce

Miner's lettuce is one of the easiest cool-season greens you'll ever grow, and honestly it half-grows itself once it settles into a spot it likes. Sow it directly in fall or very early spring — it germinates best when soil temperatures sit in the 50s, so don't waste seed in the heat of summer expecting much. The classic mistake is treating it like a warm-weather crop; it'll bolt almost overnight when the days lengthen and temperatures climb past the 60s. Give it loose, moisture-holding soil amended with a bit of compost, keep it shaded and damp, and it'll reward you through the coldest months. Once you've grown it a season, let a few plants flower and set seed — it self-sows generously and will reappear in the same beds for years, which is exactly what you want from a green this carefree.

This is a wild edible with real history: California gold miners ate it to stave off scurvy, hence the name, and it's genuinely loaded with vitamin C, plus iron and beta-carotene. The whole plant is edible raw — the round, succulent leaves with their little flower cups have a mild, fresh, almost spinach-like flavor that's lovely in salads or wilted briefly into eggs. Indigenous peoples of western North America traditionally ate it both raw and lightly cooked, and some accounts note it was set near ant nests so the formic acid would lend it a vinegary tang before harvest. Harvest young and often, before flowering for the tenderest leaves, and it'll keep producing as long as the weather stays cool.