GROW YOUR OWN FOOD WITH DIRTY NAILS APRIL, 3RD WEEK TENDING… STRAWBERRIES Dirty Nails has been planting out his strawberries this week. He sowed seeds of Alpine and Temptation F1 in early February and since then they have been developing a thick mass of roots and dainty crowns. He cultivates his Alpines in a shady, north-facing bed where they should thrive and fruit prolifically. Temptation F1 requires sunshine, and he grows these in an open position planted in rows at 8 inch (20 cm) intervals. He is hopeful that they will provide a small crop in the first season, and also throw out lots of baby plants on runners. He will tend these too, and pot them up in autumn to increase his stock. With luck, the original plants will harvest heavier in their second and third years.

…KALE Kale sown in the first week of March has been potted-on. The slugs have had their share of seedlings, even in the greenhouse, but many are untouched. Even now, the lovely crinkled edges of Pentland Brig and Westland Winter leaves are taking shape. Dirty Nails has moved them from 3½ inch (9 cm) to 5½ inch (14 cm) pots. Within a week they appear to have almost doubled in size. He pots them on deep, with the young greens buried firmly up to their first set of leaves.

…CARROTS Carrots can be patchy germinators. Some rows are showing pretty lines of delicate seedlings while others are sparse. Where germination has been poor, Dirty Nails re-sows with fresh seed. He simply makes a ½ inch (1 cm) deep groove with his finger along the lengths of row where no seedlings have appeared, sprinkles seeds into this, and brushes the soil over them with the back of his hand.

Where they have come up thick and consistent, early sowings can be thinned now. Dirty Nails loves getting in amongst his inch-high carrots. He selects the biggest and strongest seedlings to grow on, and carefully pulls out the others. Those left in the soil are firmed in gently. At this stage he aims to leave a single row of evenly spaced, slender-leaved plants. If they are an inch (2 ½ cm) apart that is fine, because they can gradually be thinned to larger spacings as they increase in size. All thinnings are put in a bucket and buried in the compost heap immediately, lest the dreaded Carrot Root Fly gets a sniff and a female descends to lay her eggs.

…CUCUMBERS In the greenhouse cucumber seeds sown last week have germinated with great gusto, so Dirty Nails has removed their newspaper and glass covering and is being very particular about keeping the soil moist but not wet.

EXTRACTS FROM DIRTY NAILS’ JOURNAL SWALLOWS ABOVE BATCOMBE RIDGE “Travelling between Lyons Gate and Evershot along that sinewy road that rides the ridge above Batcombe one morning in late April, my destination the still distant Marshwood Vale. The drive offers a breathtaking contrast between bleak open arable and ancient woodland. Contorted figures of wizened oak and sycamore line the route. Expansive rolling fields to the left, and opposite down below a fairyland of classic pastoral, typically English patchwork quilted fields and copses as far as the eye can see. This is indeed a remote piece of country, although modern modes of travel bring everything closer and as long as the machinery does not fail, it is nowadays only a short trip to almost anywhere.

“Nonetheless, this quiet length of metalled carriageway definitely demarks a change in both scenery and atmosphere. Maybe a muddy ancestral track was carved out along the chalky hilltop by folk who lived and died by the elemental forces which dominated their existences, ever-changing environmental moods which one day provide the landscape with a place in bright clear sunshine and the next see it cloaked in a shroud of mist and fog.

“For the contemporary traveller, which includes me in a heated and comfortable smooth-riding motor, fortunately the magic of the place is still not lost. Taking five minutes to experience a snapshot of this essence on a warm and lovely spring morning, I pulled into a farm gateway, silenced the engine and sat in wonder as skylarks poured out a priceless stream of uplifting song from their tiny lungs somewhere high above.

“But the real reason for stopping was to contemplate the sight of swallows drifting past in loose flocks of half a dozen or more. Unmistakeable and beautifully aerodynamic, darting little fellows in flashing blue, mesmerising because of the sheer incredibleness of the journey which they have undertaken only in the last week or so. From sub-Saharan Africa, with hippos and cheetahs, to mid-Dorset and beyond, with its rainforest-esque surge of April growth and associated life. A place so rich and valuable at this time of year that even the crucible of our creation cannot compare and must be evacuated to make haste for here, where bountiful supplies of insects will ensure maximum success in the breeding and raising young department. I cannot help but marvel at the enormous amount of unleashed energy which is all-enveloping, not yet half-way through the year.”

A Vegetable Gardener's Year by Dirty Nails (ISBN 978190586221) is available from www.dirtynails.co.uk and good bookshops, rrp £12.99