Little Lettuces

We're not really food gardeners preferring to use our precious soil to raise flowers and herbs. But in late February we look out at the garden and realize how barren the pots are. The pots that hold geraniums and begonias in the summertime. So we buy packages of lettuce seed at the market and into these barren pots right over the soil that we pulled the geraniums out in November, we sprinkle these tiny seeds.

We're rewarded with pots of lettuces. Come late April or early May, we have our choice of fresh greens to pick for luncheon and dinner salads. I always feel so virtuous as long as we have these lettuces to add to our meals. For a few cents for seeds we're rewarded with many enjoyable salads.

By the time the lettuces bolt about mid June, annuals are on sale and so I fill the pots with their summer finery -- geraniums or begonias at half price.

I enjoy the May garden with the pansies in some of the planters, lettuces in others, the breakfast room geranium pots in the garden and the red salvia in the iron planters under the hummingbird feeders. The garden is starting to come alive.