Everyone, regardless of background, status or class ultimately depends on the land for their food and survival.

It is this basic instinctive need that first inspired Dirty Nails to start growing food crops. His efforts have nothing to do with cultivating the largest, roundest, shiniest onion or longest, straightest runner bean. Such pastimes are for others. His passion is simply for eating good honest food, following the natural order of things on the plot, tuning in to the ebb and flow of life beyond computer screens and outside of walls and windows. For Dirty Nails, to feel the sun on his back or rain in his face, to cut a lettuce in midsummer or gather lovingly tended produce for a deep-winter feast in icy conditions with freezing hands and fingers red raw, that is the stuff of dreams. To be at one with the elements, to have a place in the never ending cycle of life death and rebirth, to commune with the amazing diversity of plants and creatures that come and go with the changing seasons as he does, these are the magical ingredients which combine to make his gardening experience such an exquisite one.

It is the almost child-like love of what he does and where he is that first inspired Dirty Nails to put pen to paper and record day-to-day life in the garden. From these scribbled notes, reminders and observations to himself came a weekly article in the Blackmore Vale Magazine. Out of a desire to reach an audience beyond the confines of Dorset and Somerset came this book. His wish is that it will help you to grow your own food and have the time of your life whilst doing it!