GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS FEBRUARY, 1ST WEEK FROGS & BONFIRES With the air full of springtime promise, this is an ideal time to have a bonfire. Dirty Nails has been burning up his woody waste and non-compostables in readiness for the exciting weeks ahead. He is always mindful of the fact that frogs like to rest up in twiggy piles. When he needs to have a burn-up, Dirty Nails starts his fire a short distance from the rubbish. In this way he ensures that he is unlikely to incinerate any of his wide-mouthed friends, as the stuff for burning can be easily lifted with a garden fork and fed onto the blaze little-by-little. A certain amount of useful lengths of stick and other prunings are always kept back. These are tied into bundles and stored.

CATS Freshly worked soil on the veg plot can be a magnet for cats. They like to scratch around and leave little ’presents’ all over the place. Although Dirty Nails believes very much in a live-and-let-live approach to life, such feline antics can be a problem when seeds are being sown into open ground. To keep cats off seedbeds he places his sticks over the top at odd angles close together. This seems to do the trick, and does not impede the emerging seedlings.

ON DISTURBING A QUEEN WASP Whilst cleaning out his bird-boxes this week in order that the blue tits may have another brood or two in this coming season, Dirty Nails chanced upon a queen wasp hibernating inside one of them. She was hunched up in a foetal resting position, and remained un-moved as the gardener clumsily entered her hibernation chamber. Having hunted and scavenged their hectic way through last summer, queens such as this remain the sole survivors. They spend the winter months in quiet undisturbed places, their animation suspended. A nesting box is ideal. Apart from being beautiful, complex insects, wasps are useful in the garden. They account for masses of veg-devouring grubs and caterpillars. Dirty Nails was happy not to clean this particular box, and leave the queen in peace. However wasps do have an unfortunate knack of setting up home in the most inconvenient sites. With this in mind, and on Mrs. Nails’ request, he relocated the box and wasp from the side of a shed to high up in an out-of-the-way tree until that amazing call of nature urges her out to follow the instinctive ritual of millions of wasps before her.

How to Grow Your Own Food by Dirty Nails (ISBN 9781905862115) is available from bookshops and www.dirtynails.co.uk priced £10.99.

Copyright, Dirty Nails February 2009