Edible garden

A frost this week reminded me to protect my silverbeet, potatoes and lettuces. You can buy a 3m-long Haxnicks Grow tunnel from a hardware shop or garden centre, or make your own out of wire or plastic pipes bent over to form an arch. Put three of these arches over a row of seedlings and cover with plastic or frost cloth to form a tunnel. Tie the cloth together in the front and back.

When the days start to lengthen in late winter you'll be able to plant seedlings earlier because of the increased warmth in the air and in the soil inside the tunnel. The great thing about tunnel gardening is that they can be used for different reasons at different times of year.

In spring I cover mine with netting to keep the birds away from my plants; in summer, shade cloth goes over to keep the white cabbage butterflies away and to stop the plants wilting.

One vegetable that seems to thrive out in the cold is beetroot. On a winter day there's nothing better than a bowl of home-grown beetroot soup, or borscht as the Russians call it. Plant beetroot and carrots in the summer when there are many other things to eat, and just ignore them until the winter when you can dig them up and be amazed by how fresh they are.