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Spring is well under way, so planting should be in full swing across the UK in April. Growing plants can require significant effort, something that many households lack the time or energy for. However, there are some plants that can help create a flourishing garden with minimal effort.

Taking to his monthly gardening blog, TV gardener Monty Don has shared the top garden jobs to complete in April, and one of them is to grow "the easiest of all plants". This plant in question also "matures fast", according to the gardening pros at Bonnie Plants, and in as little as six weeks, says Monty. The celebrity gardener pointed out that lettuce is "one of the easiest of all plants to grow".

Bonnie Plants gardeners said that lettuce generally matures fast, which makes it "ideal for home garden production".

They noted that if you grow only one vegetable in spring, it should be lettuce. Growing lettuce is so easy, takes up little space, and you can even grow it among flowers.

Lettuce is also easy to tuck in between and under taller vegetables and is perfect for containers.

Monty explained that most lettuces take about "six to eight weeks to grow sufficiently large to eat" and will be good for another month or so if kept watered and cool.

Lettuces grow best in mild, moist conditions, so a hot, dry summer is as big a problem as a cold winter. Many lettuces are happy in some shade, as this will keep them cooler.

To avoid a glut or, worse, your lettuce all running to seed at once in very hot weather, "the secret" is to have good succession, advised Monty.

This essentially means maintaining a small but steady supply of plants rather than a single large harvest.

To do, starting from now, sow some new seed every three or four weeks, and as one batch goes over, another will be ready to eat, with a third growing on as young seedlings.

A few seeds sown thinly will provide "healthier, leafier lettuces" than a mass of thick seedlings. As they appear, weed and thin carefully to a final spacing of at least four inches.