Typically, spring marks the busiest season of the year at the nursery. While this year has been anything but typical, it’s hard to imagine kiwi gardeners not wanting to get out in their vege gardens in the coming months.

If you’re not sure where to start, I often point people towards a few lettuces. Even for the novice gardener, lettuces are simple to plant, quick to produce and take up relatively little room. 

I like to keep lettuces in my garden all year long, but from August I try to plant a few more seedlings every couple of weeks, to ensure I’ve always got a constant supply of fresh greens to eat. You can grab your lettuce seedlings from the Awapuni Nurseries online shop and have them delivered direct to your door. We guarantee satisfaction and if you’re not completely happy with your order we’ll replace them.

To keep my salads interesting, I try to plant a variety of lettuces. Buttercrunch, mesclun and cos are great for picking loose leaves off as you need them. Iceberg, triumph, and drunken woman are more classic-shaped rounder lettuces, where you pick the whole head at once. Endive is a curly variety that has a sweet centre with slightly bitter outer leaves; so very versatile.  

Once you’ve got your seedlings, plant them in a well-drained spot 20cm apart from each other. They’ll also work well in pots; try having a couple close to the kitchen for easy lunch time picking.

You can keep your lettuces from drying out by adding a layer newspaper around the base of your plants and then covering with pea straw. This mulching will also keep the weeds at bay, and it helps your lettuces from drying out, which can make them go slightly bitter.

At the same time, you’ll want to deter slugs and snails from feasting before you’ve had the chance. If your wanting to avoid slug bait, try making beer-baits out of recycled plastic bottles, or scattering broken eggshells around your seedlings. These can also be great jobs to assign out to kids, to get them involved with the garden.

Depending on where you live, lettuce takes between six to eight weeks to mature. If you’ve got room between your lettuces, try popping a few veges or herbs into these gaps. I recommend planting some spring onions and radishes; these salad ingredients are both fast growing and take up relatively little room.

Now that it’s warming up, it’s also a great time to plant some basil in between your lettuces too. While sweet basil is a kiwi favourite, you’ll see other varieties – such as lemon, Thai, red and Greek - become available in spring too.

In our kitchen, a simple favourite salad combines a couple different lettuce leaves, fresh basil, shaved parmesan, and your fav dressing for an easy summer dish. Bon appetite.