At least that is what I have asked Santa for. Actually I would be thankful for any moisture from the sky at all, including those sea mists we used to have, when a few drops would gather on each leaf and gently wet the ground.

Failing rain, green grass, and perky green leaves on every tree, it is time to get out the shallow pots of soil - or buckets, old bathtubs, ornamental watering cans or wheelbarrows or just the plastic milk bottles cut in half long ways with a few holes cut in them for drainage.

Place your chosen containers in a hot spot where you can easily give them some water recycled from the shower, like on a table by the back door, assuming you don't have a possum who will use the table as a half-way pause before getting into your roof cavity again, and a snack from the delicious greens you have growing there. Hopefully those greens will be growing until early next winter, and you will be harvesting them and eating them at least once a week till then.

I'm talking ''magic pudding''-type veg here, just like Norman Lindsay's Magic Pudding. No matter how much of the pudding you ate there was always pudding left, and no matter how often you cut the ''cut and come again'' veg, they will keep growing as long as they have heat, moisture, and some diluted plant food according to the directions on the packet.

The easiest ''cut and cut again''-type green is lettuce. I always let a lettuce or six go to seed each year, staking them well so they don't fall down, and then collect the seed and store it in an old envelope. I must have about 50 old envelopes filled with seed I have never got around to planting, because one lettuce can give about 2000 seeds.

This also means that lettuce is cheap. You may find exactly six seeds of a rare watermelon per packet, but you will probably find lots of lettuce seed, because it is too small to count and too prolific to bother trying.

Scatter the lettuce seed thickly over the soil i.e. a small amount of space between each seed. This is easier if you mix a cup of seed with a cup of sand. Now water, and wait. Within seven to 10 days you will have a crop of tiny lettuce leaves. Water them and give them a small amount of liquid fertilser and they will double in size in two days, and double again in two days more.

When they are finger length take a pair of scissors, snip them off, and make your salad.

I like to use several kinds of lettuce, the tough rabbit-eared kind and the curly red and green lettuces, because a salad is more interesting with a variety of colour and textures. Don't use the hearting kind, like mignonette or Buttercrunch. Buttercrunch is possibly my favourite lettuce in the world but it needs room to form is soft silky heart. If you do use a hearting lettuce don't be disappointed if once you have cut the leaves off, the stems turn brown and die. If in doubt buy a ''mesclun salad mix''.

Other greens can be grown in the same fast, prolific way. ''Baby Leaf'' spinach grows as easily and quickly as lettuce, as does Tatsoi and ruby chard. There is even a new variety of ruby chard (a more delicate silver beet with thin tender red stems and red veins) that remains tender longer, and has been developed to grow fast and be picked young. It's called - naturally - ''Baby Leaf Ruby Chard''. It too will grow again and again after the first cutting

Pick the ''cut and come agains'' early and you have a salad veg. Leave them for a few weeks and you have the basis for an excellent stir fry. Chinese broccoli is delicious stir fried, and responds well to the ''crowd them together, feed and pick early'' regime. Try growing celery just to eat the new leaves and tiny tender stems - it will seem an entirely different veg.

If you have never eaten stir-fried greens picked only 10 minutes before throwing them in the hot fragrant oil, then you will be startled at how sweet they are without the need for any sauce at all. All veg begin to lose their sweetness when picked, but most of us are used to the elderly ''cold stored so they at least look fresh'' kind of veg, we don't realise it till we taste home-grown ones. Any kind of chilling also removes flavour. The rule should always be: pick, wash, eat.

If you don't have a back door, or even a patio, and you don't want to muck around with pots of soil in the kitchen, try the kindergarten trick of growing greens on beds of moist cotton wool. You need about 5cm of cotton wool so the plants can get their roots into it, and keep it moist, not wet. Again, very, very diluted liquid plant food will help the leaves grow fast and lush. How much is ''very very diluted''? I have no idea, as I don't know what kind you will be using. If the seedlings die, the mix has been too strong- try again. If they look weak and yellowish instead of rich green, they need more tucker. Let the leaves be your guide.

But do keep cutting, cooking, eating. The earth is generous, and this is the perfect time to remind ourselves of its kindness.