GROW YOUR OWN FOOD with DIRTY NAILS APRIL, 2ND WEEK MAINCROP POTATOES Dirty Nails has planted the last of his potato crop this week. He pops in chitted (sprouted) tubers of his chosen Maincrop and Salad varieties to a depth of 6 inches (15 cm) at 15 inch (38 cm) intervals along the trenches he prepared and nourished some weeks ago. Maincrops appreciate a little more growing space than First and Second Earlies, so he has allowed a good 2 ½ feet (75 cm) between these rows. In many areas, Maincrop spuds are prone to catching ‘blight’. This is a fungal disease which can be especially damaging during a warm and wet summer. Brown blotches appear on the leaves, and within days the entire tops (or ‘haulms’) can die off. Dirty Nails is careful when choosing which Maincrop spud to cultivate, and always plumps for a modern variety bred with good or excellent blight resistance. He has dug a substantial harvest annually over the years thanks to a combination of good choice, good husbandry and good luck.

RIDGE CUCUMBERS In the greenhouse it is time to sow cucumber seeds. For Dirty Nails the variety of choice is Marketmore which is a reliable outdoor (or ‘ridge’) cucumber that likes to scramble up poles or netting. It produces prolifically throughout high-summer and into autumn. Scrumptious dark green, bitter-free fruits are much sought after by all the family. The creamy oval seeds resemble a large flattened grain of rice. Dirty Nails presses these into individual pots of fresh seed compost on edge, an inch (2 ½ cm) deep. After a little watering, he covers the pots with a pane of glass and some newspaper. When the seedlings start to emerge, he will remove the coverings. Dirty Nails avoids over-watering because cucumber seeds and seedlings are liable to rot if the growing medium is kept too wet.

The tender young individuals won’t be planted outside until late-May or early-June, when frost is no longer a danger. In the meantime, a warm bed receiving full sun needs to be prepared. Ridge cucumbers do best with good heat up above and a warm root-run in rich soil down below. To ensure that they get at least some of what they want, Dirty Nails dumps one bucket of fresh manure at 2 feet (60 cm) intervals, with two buckets of good soil atop each mound. The cucumbers will be planted out onto these mounds, or ‘ridges’. As for sunshine, when the time comes Dirty Nails will just have to keep his fingers crossed.

EXTRACTS FROM DIRTY NAILS’ JOURNAL COPPICE STREET HEDGE “A tattered and shabby remnant of the old field system that was, but in places only just. Derelict through neglect, unkempt and thinning, growing out, pushed through, violated and dumped on. Small stretches are in quite good nick, layable if done within the next year or three. But mostly in need of a right old shake-up if it is to remain a viable hedge to present the living ancient face of Coppice Street and remind present day incumbents of their not so distant pastoral and linear woodland past.

“Woody species abound: hawthorn, hazel, privet, elder, buckthorn, wytch elm, field maple, mountain ash, English elm suckering up and dying back throughout. A habitat thick with sparrows that descend in small flocks to its protective bosom. Its greening skeletal form gives vantage to cock chaffinches with bright colours and greenfinches, whose gentle song sounds like dripping liquid gold. Down at heel, snuffle holes and latrines occur along its length as clues to nocturnal activities of badgers amongst the nettles and brambly thickets. It is a sad spectacle in need of some care lest some bright spark on a whim decides it is better, cleaner, cheaper, less rats-all-round to grub it out and erect a fence.

“Yet despite the creeping degradation Coppice Street hedge is a vital natural resource, a shrinking habitat that lives, dies and exists in our midst. With the bursting buds and calls of wild birds, this bustling hedge is demanding our attention."

A Vegetable Gardener's Year by Dirty Nails (ISBN 9781905862221) is available from www.dirtynails.co.uk and good bookshops, rrp £12.99 Copyright, Dirty Nails April 2009