GROW YOUR OWN FOOD with DIRTY NAILS FEBRUARY, 3RD WEEK SOWING STRAWBERRIES Dirty Nails has been in the greenhouse this week sowing strawberry seeds. He favours two varieties, Alpine and Temptation F1. The former is useful for planting outside in shady areas where it produces masses of small, intensely-flavoured fruits. Temptation F1 grows large, juicy, very sweet strawberries when cultivated in a sunny place. It will fruit this summer from a sowing now, and will crop especially heavily in the second and third years.

The seeds of these glorious-tasting beauties are tiny, and Dirty Nails has to use tweezers to handle them. They are sown very thinly in trays of moist compost, barely ¼ inch (½ cm) deep. Patience is needed when growing strawbs from seed, as they can be slow germinators and developers. He keeps them in a sunny place, moist but not wet, in an unheated greenhouse, and does not expect his seedlings to be large enough to pot on for a couple of months. He won’t plant them outside until mid-April or early May.

TENDING BROADS Most of the broad beans that Dirty Nails planted outside in mid-October are showing 5 or 6 inches (15 cm) of healthy growth. The odd one has not germinated and a few are exhibiting signs of ‘foot and root rot‘. This shows as withered and blackened or dark brown lower leaves and stems. It is fatal to the affected broads but thankfully won’t ruin the whole crop if spotted early. Dirty Nails finds that a few over-wintering broads always catch it but that losses are usually minimal. Any individual looking unhealthy is pulled up and burned.

Where there are spaces in his rows of broad beans, he plants fresh seeds to make up the gaps. Pushed in to a depth of 3 inches (7 cm), at 6 inch (15 cm) intervals, they will soon be growing strongly and prove useful in extending the cropping season.

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