Robin Lane Fox designs a subversively modern vegetable garden that could work in all terrains

I ought to explain my choice of supermarket imagery. In between the big pots you should put some smaller pots of good compost, which you can sow with seed of genuine spinach - not the type of beet, or beta vulgaris, that panders to modern supermarket customers' penchant for unseasonable shopping. True spinach is a summer vegetable, which tends to flop if taken too far from home. It tastes of iron and dark green goodness. The beet impostor tastes of nondescript leaves and does not deserve the marketers' ploy of calling it "French". If you want proper spinach you have to grow your own, out of the reach of predators at ground level. I grow the strong Scenic F1 Hybrid, whose seed is available from Thompson & Morgan of Ipswich.

My other supermarket supplements are dill and chervil. They are two excellent herbs, which seldom turn up in the shops in those pots of hopeless peat. You have to sow them yourself, but they are extremely easy to grow. Dill makes rather thin-stemmed plants with finely cut little leaves, but it is the most excellent companion for ordinary farmed fish. The chopped leaves will even enliven sea bass that has never seen salt water. Its full name is Anethum gravolens and it is seldom as much as a foot high. Chervil, by contrast, is much too strongly flavoured for fish. It comes into its own when a few leaves are shredded and mixed into scrambled eggs. Few shops actually sell it, but it is extraordinarily easy to grow in a pot, even on a windowsill. Its botanical name is Anthriscus.

The centrepiece of my answer to the allotment has to be the bitter-leaved radicchio. It can be hard to find in supermarkets but this year Thompson & Morgan are offering seeds of an excellent early variety from Treviso in northern Italy. I value it because it is excellent in a particular recipe. Cut bits of radicchio into thin strips and cut a few slices of Parma ham into similar widths. Melt some unsalted butter and add a clove of squashed garlic and two tablespoons of chopped leaves from a rosemary bush. Put in half of the radicchio and half the Parma ham. Cook them very briefly and put to one side. Then, boil up some tagliatelle in salted water, drain it and add a bit more butter and some Parmesan cheese. Put in the cooked radicchio and ham and then add the rest and stir it around frantically. It is much better with your own fresh radicchio. The recipe is not mine, I owe it to the River Cafe cookbook Easy but I have eaten it six times in the past six months.

The crucial point is to realise that vegetables make the most excellent pot plants if you choose varieties carefully. The hazards at ground level are simply too great for most of us. Flies proliferate, rain is rare and the dreaded wildlife will eat whatever it can. Turn the old advice on its head and put flowers in your allotment and vegetables on a weed-free terrace beside the house.