I think it is worth having an organic vegetable patch just for the bliss of being able to pick lettuce fresh for your salad each evening.

If you take a few leaves from the outside the lettuce keeps producing. Having several varieties of lettuce makes for an interesting mix of shape, colour and flavour.

You can use lettuce leaves in stock as well as salads, sandwiches, wraps and rolls. Keep some mulch around your lettuce plants – they appreciate a little pampering.

So let us give thanks for the lettuce – the heart of a salad garden.