GARDENING WITH DIRTY NAILS MAY, 3RD WEEK SUCCESSION SOWING Sowing seeds is so rewarding and fun at this time of year! Since the beginning of May, Dirty Nails has put down 6 foot (2 metre) rows of beetroot (Boltardy), Spring onion (White Lisbon), carrot (Berlicum and Autumn Giant), Swiss chard, leaf beet, lettuce (Anouk, Little Gem, Great Lakes), and Florence fennel (Romanesque). With two short weeks barely passed everything except the fennel is already showing. In fairness, the fennel only went in a few days ago.

Suitable varieties of these crops and others were sown in the preceding two or three months. After a slow start they are coming on nicely. Dirty Nails has been close in amongst them, thinning out. This is a fine job to do on a calm, warm day. He selects the poorest and weakest seedlings in the line and pulls them out. This leaves only the strongest, biggest plants and they can be thinned again in due course allowing extra space for the others to fatten up. Some crops need more room than others so it is wise to consult the relevant seed packet.

What Dirty Nails sees when he casts an eye over the veg plot is a lot of foodstuffs coming on at different stages of development. This pleases him. Although seeds sown now grow amazingly quickly compared with the stuttery start of late winter/early spring sowings, they can’t quite catch up. The result of this succession sowing is that there will be more veg in the kitchen over a longer period of time. BIRD WATCHING One of the highlights of the gardening week for Dirty Nails was spending time on the veg plot with a friendly blackbird. The handsome fellow descended in sunshine shortly after the crops had been given a good watering. He hopped, skipped, and jumped right around the outside and then in amongst the rows, pausing regularly to cock his head and snatch a juicy tid-bit. This is a busy time of year for blackbirds, with a clutch of hungry mouths to feed back on the nest. Only when the blackbird emerged from a patch of nicely hearting iceberg lettuces, with his bright orange beak dripping full of wriggling worms, did he open his wings and take off over the hedge. Losing a parent now would be disastrous for chicks or fledglings, so Dirty Nails has a rule with cats in the garden. That is, whenever he is working in it they are politely but definitely shooed away. By doing so, the local birds have learnt when the coast is clear from cats for a safe visit.

EXTRACTS FROM DIRTY NAILS’ JOURNAL ENJOYING PINE WALK “Pulling the foam plugs from my ears after wearing them for nigh-on two hours, I straightened and stood bathed in a shaft of sunlight. Dozens of birds immediately filled in with a cacophony of fluting warbles for what had been a continuous monotonous soundtrack of muted engine noise.

“It is a lovely May day, warm, blue sky complete with high white, cotton wool cloud. Pine Walk is strimmed and blown, transformed from a jumble of spilling-over cow parsley and husks of beech buds on the deck to a cleaner, neater path that snakes away and undulates along its short length up, down and around corners.

“Such is the intense deepness and beauty of the trees and plants, the magic of the natural sounds, that walking this way on a day like this is almost psychedelic. Starting from St Johns Hill it is like a pine forest, becoming a lighter place that could be a Virginian mountain pass. Then into an English beech wood with monster trees towering skywards like fantastic smooth grey elephants’ legs stretching up into their tender pale green canopies. Opening out up on Park Walk, and what could be finer? Mums pushing prams, couples kissing, family groups strolling gently. A barely discernable dance of heat haze shimmering just above the tarmac.

“It is mid-afternoon, I have more to do. It does need to be noted, however, that right here right now, with St. James down below and chaffinches all around, there is arguably no more agreeable place to be.”

JOBS TO DO In the greenhouse Put beans, cucurbits and sweet corn outside to harden-off.

Pot-on sunflower, Giant Single, and place outside during the daytime to harden-off.

Sort, tidy and start to get the greenhouse ready to take tomatoes in grow bags.

Plant Tumbler tomatoes into grow bags.

Water and liquid feed tomatoes.

Sort out cabbages and squashes for planting out.

On the plot Plant out Dwarf Green Curled and Westland Winter kale, Painted Lady and Streamline runner bean, Haricot and Blauhilde climbing French bean, courgettes (Yellow Straightneck, Goldrush and Nero di Milano), Marner Gruwefi Savoy cabbage.

Water spuds.

Water seedlings and young crops.

Select a range of healthy mixed specimens to give as early-summer gifts to friends.

Hand weed leek nursery.

Support broad beans with canes and string.

Weed and hoe through rows of veg.

Re-sow carrots if germination has been patchy.

Earth-up Kestrel Second Early spuds.

Check over asparagus and cease cutting a young bed to boost strength for next year.

Sow Saxa and Cantare dwarf French beans.

Prepare a bed for purple sprouting by weeding, raking and treading firm.

Earth-up Maincrop and Salad potatoes.

Plant-out Early purple sprouting and the last of the kale.

Gently and carefully train runner beans up their poles by tying loosely with soft string.

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