HGTV's Erin Napier Shares Her Favorite Vegetables To Grow In A Garden

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HGTV's Erin Napier is known for her yard maintenance tips and home improvement know-how, which are front and center on "Home Town," the show she hosts with her husband, Ben. It seems that she's pretty passionate about cooking, too. In a video with Southern Living, she shared how she grows her favorite salad ingredients in a vegetable garden behind her Mississippi home. In addition to cultivating crisp greens that work in many styles of salads, she focuses on flavor-packed add-ins that are quick and easy to prepare.

Romaine lettuce is a staple in Napier's garden, but her other top picks are the stars of her salads. She especially loves having tomatoes and green onions just a stone's throw from her kitchen. "It's all so fresh," she says in the video, noting how her salads often come together as she harvests the ingredients. "I can plan on whatever meat I'm going to cook, roast a chicken, and then I can walk out here to the garden to make the salad."

Herbs are another element that elevates Napier's salads. Napier is partial to fresh dill, which isn't just for pickles at her house. "I can put dill in my ranch dressing. That's really cool," she says. Dill is awesome for another reason, too: It repels garden pests such as aphids, which can compromise the health of lettuce, tomatoes, and other veggies on Napier's must-have list. Plus, it attracts ladybugs, hover flies, and other beneficial insects that help keep troublemaking insects from wrecking the plants in salad gardens.

You don't need much room to grow a hearty supply of lettuce, plus a few other vegetables and herbs. About 16 square feet of space will do. A raised bed that's 1 foot high can accommodate most salad vegetables, but go for 2 feet if you decide to grow tomatoes. Also, cover the bed with mesh to protect your crops from hungry bunnies and other snack seekers. Use garden hoops such as Hdeoops 8-foot Garden Hoops to elevate the mesh and landscaping pins to tack down its edges. Once you've settled on at least one type of lettuce, select some other salad greens. If you live somewhere with scorching summer temperatures, incorporate heat-tolerant options such as arugula and mizuna. Or, harvest tender young chard leaves.

Let timing and your tastes determine the other plants in your salad garden. To harvest fresh herbs in 45 to 60 days, around the same time many loose-leaf lettuces are ready to pick, give chives or basil a try. Both make excellent flavorings for salad dressing, and basil is an ideal companion for tomatoes because it repels the hornworms that devour these plants. 

Radishes are another possibility for pairing with your first lettuce crop. You can enjoy their crunch and peppery kick a month after you sow their seeds. Cucumbers will boost the crunch factor even further, but you'll need to wait longer to enjoy them: 50 to 70 days. Bush cucumber plants are quite compact, so they're a great choice for small salad gardens. Just don't grow these vegetables near moisture-loving basil, as they may hog the water supply.