The Environment Envir.
Some gardeners think of spring bulbs as the first signs of spring.
I think of spinach. Spinach is always one of the first crops in my vegetable garden because I plant it the prior fall and let it go dormant over the winter. Providing the winter is not too extreme, the spinach plants start growing again as soon as the snow melts and the ground starts to warm. So when I think of spring, I think of spinach. It comes to us from central and southwest Asia and was first cultivated in Persia or what is now Iran.