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risk I'm less used to.I spent most of last week running around the vegetable patch trying to protect my crops from the scorching sun. To create a little shade I made newspaper tents, pinned twigs and paper to the tops of net-covered raised bed frames

squashed.I’ve developed a very cost-efficient system of protecting the young daffs from destruction. I take a handful of bamboo canes and some bright orange baler twine. I drive the short bamboo canes into the edges of the drive and tie the twine

of sweet-yet-tangy strawberries every couple of days. Although they seem totally unaffected by the cold, I’ve protected some of them with a fleece-covered tunnel. Having seen the number of unripe strawberries, I simply couldn’t help myself.The greenhouse

plummets at about 6pm. So yes, the fleece is draped all over the place in the veg plots. A bit of snugly-protection for my sweet potatoes (I'm growing Bearegard and Jetfire this year, it'll be interesting to see how they fare!) and some vital, please

am!We've also got a slight deer problem. While our trees are protected with anti-rabbit spirals, we have no protection against deer, which neatly nibble off any accessible branches. So I'm hard at work, suspending junk CDs from the tree branches

to while away the winter months, and if you find one you can be sure there will be a lot more in that protected hiding place too. Check under loose flaps of bark, behind stacked spare paving slabs, around unused flower pots, around the back of planters

to improve drainage. I'll probably resort to raiding the kids' sandpit, and the sand used to fill in the drainage holes.I'll also soon be out protecting my emerging daffodils with twine and canes. They're starting to appear along the drive near the lawn

individual bulbs of garlic into pots, then transplanting them later on.Everything else is starting to move too, the tomato, pepper and aubergine seedlings are responding well to the increased light levels. I planted a few potatoes earlier but had to protect

watered erratically. This makes their plant cells more vulnerable to scorch damage.There's not a lot we can do about wind scorch or damage from heavy rain and hail, but we can change our watering technique to protect container plants and fruit and veg from

the dreaded pests and diseases can look good. Cuckoo spit usually appears from about June onwards and inside the fascinating glob of 'spit' are immature (or nymph) frog hoppers, most commonly Philaenus spumarius. They sit in the wonderfully protected frothy