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The traditional first plantings of spring are spinach, peas, lettuce, and greens. What gardeners love about them is that they grow very fast in spring, are ready to eat in just over a month, and taste wonderful. In the past, these crops were often the first taste of something fresh after a winter of dried and salted foods. They are still a spring treat and a health boost today. Their juicy crispness is the outward sign of the vitamins, fiber, hydrating gels, anti-oxidants, and myriad other compounds that make us feel better. All of these plants need to grow quickly before heat sets in, so they need adequate moisture and fertility. However, they also need enough warmth to fuel growth, and good drainage. Oak trees leaf out when the soil and air temperatures are right for peas and greens, so watch the trees in addition to the calendar. Their fast growth make these great windowsill plants too. You can grow them in a sunny window with no trouble, and clip them when they're 4-8" tall. They will regrow for more harvests. Peas, spinach, and lettuce enjoy a less acid soil(pH 6.5 to 7.) Traditional practice has been to dig the bed over and incorporate manure, compost,or other sources of organic matter, along with some wood ash or lime. Calcium is necessary for fast growth in cool conditions, so don't skip adding lime, oyster shell, or ashes. Spinach especially will be milder and sweeter if you do. Adding compost lets air into the soil, which may be compacted and cold after winter rains. The air helps the soil to warm, lets roots expand easily, and makes nutrients more available. No-dig methods use a layer of compost on top of the soil, into which the seeds or transplants are planted. (If the soil is , ash or limestone can be spread first.) If soil is unseasonably soggy, and too wet to dig or to plant into, I suggest either making your first plantings in containers, or dumping compost/potting mix, on top of the ground and planting into that.  The fastest-growing salad of all is a little California native called Miner's Lettuce. It grows wild in my garden under a big black walnut tree. It's rare to find an edible plant that is both shade-tolerant and tolerant of the poisons secreted into the soil by walnut trees. Amazingly, it has a very mild flavor and juicy texture that has made it a favorite of chefs. It is always my first harvest of the year.  Spinach loves cool weather and and needs quite a bit of moisture to start. Indeed, if your soil is dry, I suggest soaking the seeds for an hour or two. It should be planted now for a spring crop, and again in the fall, as it is adapted not only to cool weather, but to short days. The longer days of summer will make it bolt and taste strong.  Lettuce is the simplest of all to plant and use. A fast-growing, cold-tolerant variety like Emerald Fan, Bronze Arrow, or Hungarian Pink Winter gives you salads very quickly, with the tender texture that is the hallmark of spring. Like most greens, it needs to have space to develop without check. If you will not realistically down and thin your lettuce, consider transplants. It's easier to thin little pots or trays at table height, and they can go into the ground with room to grow.  Peas are the only one of the bunch that takes two months to crop instead of one. But the new practice of harvesting pea shoots means that even peas can be giving you a harvest quickly. You can plant some peas in a pot and harvest them for shoots over and over, while your peas for pods grow on a trellis for harvest later. Whether for shoots or pods, peas are easy but not terribly vigorous, so it's good to know their quirks. In cool spring weather, they should be planted more shallowly than other legumes, about 1/2 inch deep. (Late summer plantings should be deeper to take advantage of moisture further down.) They can be transplanted with care when very young, if conditions outside are too wet, windy, cold, or unready, And they need support. Peas are climbing vines, and don't do well sprawling on the ground. Even very short "bush" varieties are vines, and will not stand up on their own. Short varieties can do well in tomato cages, while taller sorts need a trellis or fence. You should view the heights in seed listings as possibilities, not facts. Cooler weather means the vines will keep growing, while hot or very cold weather will stunt them. Last year's cool spring meant that my Cascadias, normally 4' tall, grew to 8 feet. Further, they climb in a special way, which needs the right support. Beans, morning glories, and some other vines grow by twining; they'll go round and round a pole in a spiral. Peas will not. A pole is almost useless to them--they need more of a ladder. They make tendrils that reach out and grab onto supports as they climb, just like you do. For peas, you need to provide support with horizontal wires, woven branches, bushy twigs, or other horizontal or diagonal handholds a foot or less apart. Pig wire or concrete reinforcing wire works extremely well. Posts with sisal or hemp twine stretched between are great; in fall, cut the twine and compost the entire mass, twine and all.  The turnip/mustard tribe, has flavors that range from mild to fiery. I like Mizuna and Mizpoona Salad Select for their mild flavor and lettucy texture in early salads. The fiery mustards like Green Wave, and Dragon Tongue are tamed with cooking, gaining rich complex flavors that are traditional complements to cheese, pork, or fermented foods like tempeh. Cima di rapa has bold flavor in a fast-growing flowerstalk like a mini broccoli.
Carol Deppe once made a quick, dense planting of Green Wave Mustard in a layer of compost spread on her concrete driveway. after about 6 weeks, the planting was cut & processed all at once for freezing. (Detailed in The Tao of Vegetable Gardening.) It put the compost to work until she was able to use it in the garden, and gave a huge crop that stocked the freezer. This is an example of how, given moisture and fertility, these fast growers can make a lot of food in a very small amount of time, then free up the space for another crop--if they have a fertile, moist, porous soil to grow in. See the possibilities here.
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