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| Photo Credit: Sarah Landicho |
| Grab a few cool-season greens and pansies for your pretty front-patio pots. |
My family loves its greens. In fact, last year our daughters grazed their way through our herb garden like cows. (So long cilantro. Sayonara parsley.) So this year I thought I’d try growing something that packs an even healthier punch – lettuces and greens. Better yet, I decided to grow them in decorative containers on our front stoop to dress up our Chicago spring garden.
The key was to make these “salad bowls” accessible to my kids, who often play out on the front sidewalk rather than in our muddy springtime back yard. Lettuces and pansies work well out front this time of year because the containers (which are typically cloaked in dappled shade during the regular growing season) get plenty of sun since our tree hasn’t even come close to leafing out yet. The best part of my grand plan was the fact that the containers’ location (raised up on our stoop) meant that the urban bunnies can’t get to the greens before my hungry kids. | Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: Sarah Landicho | | I used Buttercrunch lettuce, chard and red leaf lettuce as the centerpieces for each pot. |
With a plan in my head, I scouted my local garden center to pick up some colorful starter plants and pretty pansies for my containers. (I wanted that “instantly full” look and didn’t have time to start the plants from seed.) The ingredients for my two containers included:
2 Buttercrunch lettuce
2 red leaf lettuce
2 chard (one red, one rainbow)
1 9-pack of baby spinach
2 6-packs of pansies
1 seed packet of Mesclun mix
1 large bag of organic potting mix
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