The Salad Bowl - A Mother's Day Gift from the Garden

Here's a quickie idea for Mother's Day.

I make a little salad bowl every year. It's a fun container garden of lettuces, herbs, whatever I feel like putting in. I planted this one in April, so I used the cool weather greens. It's a great gift - for Mom, for a housewarming, for any summer hostess gift.

Start with a pot. You can use a terracotta, ceramic or plastic. It really depends how much money you want to spend.

Buy market packs of some lettuce varieties you like - in the pot you see at the top of the post, I used romaine and leaf lettuce, as well as arugula. And some cilantro.

Look around the nursery - see what sort of herbs or plants you might want to add.

this is some pretty sorry looking arugula, but pot it up
and give the roots room, and it will produce for weeks

Fill the container with good, organic potting soil.

Plant the lettuces and herbs, leaving room for them to grow. Water well.

If this is watered regularly, the outside leaves removed from the lettuces for a daily salad, herbs nipped back, and given enough sun, this salad bowl will produce for several weeks.

Put in a pepper plant for jalapenos or Thai chilis later in the summer.

Add cilantro, parsley and basil and you've got the start of all sorts of Mexican or Thai recipes.



The Salad Bowl will cost about $20. or less, take just a few minutes to put together, and will make anybody, especially a cooking Mom, really happy.

Thyme, parsley, three kinds of basil. I'm going to add a rosemary plant tomorrow.
This pot is ready for the beach house we rent every August.