It’s hard to believe that it’s January all over again and that the last gardening year has flown to an end so quickly with, as always, so much planned work still waiting to be done yet. Here we go again, off on another round of horticultural adventures!

If I recall correctly, around this time last year I threatened to inundate you with organic ideas and I think I did so, but the subject is far from exhausted and there is much of importance still to be shared over the coming months; therefore, the sooner we get started the better.

First and foremost for all of you living in the plains, where the growing season is in full swing, there is lots of important planting to get underway right now with all things edible taking the lead.

With fresh, crunchy, ‘inventive’ salads finally gaining popularity in Pakistan, where a ‘salad’ used to consist of nothing more than a few slices of soggy tomato, wilted lettuce leaves and maybe a wedge of rubbery cucumber, seed sellers are finally catching on to the fact that gardeners want variety on the salad ingredient front, and it can be surprising what you may find if you search hard enough and right now is the perfect time to get some colourfully delectable ‘saladings’ off to a good start.

Red, purple, pink, spotted, streaked, flat, curly, smooth, crinkly, with crisp, solid hearts or flat leaved and heartless, lettuce is just about the easiest salady thing to grow from seed and just a single packet of seeds, providing that it contains a reasonable amount, should be enough to keep a family of four in garden produced, raw greens for weeks, possibly even months, on end.

Soil preparation is simple too: Prepare the seed bed by first clearing the ground of all surface weeds and any deep rooted perennial weeds, removing stones and any other foreign matter while you are about it. The seed bed does not need to be huge and an area, if it is only for lettuce, of approximately one metre by one metre is ample as, once the seedlings reach the four to six leaf stage, they are ready to be transplanted out into their actual growing position. Applying the ‘no dig’ principle, other than removing the roots of perennial weeds of course, rake the existing, cleaned soil flat and top it up, after removing/breaking up any lumps, with a two to three-inch deep layer of 50 per cent sweet earth, 10 per cent river sand (not saline sea sand), 10 per cent organic compost and 10 per cent old, well-rotted, organic manure. This will, at first, raise the soil level but, in a matter of a few days, it will settle down and provide the perfect growing medium for all types of vegetable seeds and maturing vegetables too. Exactly the same soil mix can also be used in seed trays, clay pots or other containers.

The biggest mistake people tend to make in sowing seeds of all kinds, is of sowing them way too close, especially when the seeds, such as lettuce, are small. Sowing seeds too close is a waste of seeds, space, time, water and energy as germinating seedlings will have to compete for nutrients, light and breathing space with, in the process, many of them giving up the fight and dying off before they have had a chance to develop.

Lettuce seeds are best sown a couple of inches apart in rows just three inches apart and then, as mentioned above, transplanted out in a prepared growing area — prepared exactly the same as for seed beds — at a distance of six to eight inches apart, in rows six to eight inches apart, although these measurements can vary depending on the variety of lettuce being grown. For a family of four, the ideal system is to sow a maximum of a dozen lettuce seeds per week unless, that is, you want to end up eating lettuce for breakfast, lunch and dinner! Lettuces can also be grown in pots, just one plant per eight to 10-inch clay pot is ideal, in an assortment of containers such as recycled wooden vegetable crates lined with newspaper and in a wide range of other ‘recyclables’ having a depth of four to six inches as lettuce are shallow rooted, as long as adequate drainage is provided.

Lettuce seed can be sown all the year round, providing the right variety for the season is selected. Fairly trouble free in our climate, lettuce is best cultivated in full sun during the relative cool of the winter months and in partial shade during the rest of the year. Regular weeding is important, especially when the lettuce are at the seedling stage, as is regular watering but do not over do it on the watering front otherwise a variety of stem/root rot problems are liable to decimate your potential crop.

Depending on the variety, lettuce is ready to harvest in as little as four to eight weeks from seed sowing when cultivation and climatic conditions are optimum and in eight to 10 weeks during more difficult times of the year.

Other edibles to start off this month include radish of all kinds, spring onions, beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, leaf beet, mustard mizuna, giant red mustard, plus tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicums and aubergines which, the latter four being warm weather vegetables, are best started off under glass/plastic or, at the very least, provided with protection from sunset to sunrise until temperatures pick up.

Elsewhere in the garden: If you are growing strawberries then don’t forget to check over, and under, the mulch that, I hope, you placed around the plants and underneath the developing fruit, to retain soil moisture, smother weeds and keep the fruit from coming into direct contact with the soil. Nasties like slugs and snails tend to hide beneath the mulch so, wearing gloves if you like, go on the hunt, remove them and dispose of them in a sensible manner.

Have a look over your chrysanthemums; most varieties do have edible flowers and some also have, such as the ‘chop-suey’ chrysanthemum, edible leaves too. Cut back any that have finished flowering and mark plants, by colour or flower shape/size, from which you want to pot up suckers to increase your stock.

There is plenty of time to take more geranium and carnation cuttings too but do get a move on with pruning back any dormant shrubs and trees which need it before spring suddenly arrives and these sleeping plants suddenly decide that it is time to wake up!

Please send your gardening queries to

zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. E-mails with attachments will not be opened.