SUNSHINE AND SHOWERS, WEEDS AND TOMATOES: A few consecutive days of sunshine and showers can prove to be a heady mix in early June.

There is a lush, dripping greenness to foliage which provides a perfect backdrop to the rainbow shades which flowers provide.

In the orchard, they dance in anarchic swathes and patches. Their natural gay abandon contrasts and compliments the sumptuous, over-flowing, lovingly-tended shapes, colours and textures of the cottage garden.

In the veg patch, Dirty Nails can admire the rich, deep browns and black of the wonderful, fertile, loamy soil that he is blessed to work with and maintain year on year with manure, leaf mould, and compost.

With growth taking on tropical rainforest proportions, Dirty Nails is happy to be able to eat some of the weeds that seem to be growing faster than anything else at this time of year.

Smooth sow thistle is a common and prolific weed wherever humans disturb the land. Growing up to 3 feet (90 cm) or more, it has leaves that resemble those of the dandelion, but paler in colour, with a collared fringe where they join the stem.

The edges are serrated, but not as angry-looking as its bolder, deeper-green relative the prickly sow thistle. When cut or snapped the hollow stem exudes a milky juice.

Flowers resemble dandelion blooms, small yellow discs borne in bunches at the top of the plant. The leaves make a nourishing, tasty alternative to spinach when cooked as such, but Dirty Nails likes it best when a few leaves are gathered and chopped finely for a cooling, mildly bitter addition to salad dressings.

Sow thistles are reputed to have great restorative properties.

Hunted hares, exhausted during the chase, were believed to rest-up in the company of these plants and, having nibbled some leaves, were enlivened enough to escape their persecutors.

Dirty Nails is relieved to duck inside the greenhouse as another shower deluges. From there he can watch as water pours from gutters and water butts overflow.

The richly red, veined leaves of beetroot, and fabulous flowers adorning broad beans make heartening viewing as rain batters down in rapidly dispersing circles on the roof. Inside, tomatoes grown from seed are doing well.

Dirty Nails planted up his grow-bags at the end of May, and not only have the plants shot up in size but they are laden with masses of the most delicate, yellow, star-like flowers. He is especially chuffed with the Tumbler variety.

This is a prolific tomato, ideal for growing-bags and hanging baskets. It branches freely and there is no need for pinching out or removing any foliage, except that which is looking unhealthy.

Although plenty can go wrong between now and cropping, the signs are good for a bumper harvest. Every few days a splash of homemade nettle and comfrey tincture is mixed into a full watering can for a tomato feed.

The greenhouse is decked out with a couple of dozen French marigolds, potted up individually. They appear to be succeeding in keeping the troublesome whitefly at bay.

EXTRACTS FROM DIRTY NAILS’ JOURNAL SONG THRUSH: “Nigh-on every morning since the mild turn of the year, on stumbling my early morning way up the garden path to unlock shed and have a look around, I have been greeted by a musical songster of what I consider to be the highest calibre.

"A song thrush. Is it the same one or, as with the whirring clockwork-toy wrens, multiple individuals delighting my eardrums? I do not know for sure.

"But this bird, or these birds, perch in regular spots amongst elder and lime and sing out at regular times. More so also in the evening as the year has progressed.

"A series of notes repeated, pause, then some more different tones, and it goes on. Squeaks, whistles, churrs, chimes, fluting beauty.

“This morning it has rained from daybreak after a long spell of dryness and wind that had turned soil to dust on top.

"Thankfully not a deluge as so often happens these days, with big heavy drops descending like millions of hammer blows to beat down vegetation and cause flash-flood rivulets that scour the earth and wash away the powdery particles.

"No, an altogether friendlier rain of soft fine spots, enough to leave the greenhouse roof dripping intermittently and create a steady trickle of water from gutter to butt.

"As I stood sheltered in the greenhouse looking across the young orchard tucked, south-facing, under the hill, song thrush was on the path. He or she was with ruffled feathers fluffing up from time to time, looking for tidbits. A flutter up onto the logs, again to fence top, and away.

“I fed my cat, spoke to wife and step-daughter, readied myself for work. Once more to the shed. Thrush was high up on the ridged roof of the end-on cottages serenading the neighbourhood.

"Through binoculars, I homed-in close, leaning on the fence to steady my hands. Beak opening, the most elaborate fluid music was being sung with head thrown back and constantly turning, wind catching dampened feathers in untidy contrast to the lovely sounds.”

JOBS TO DO IN THE GREENHOUSE: Keep all crops watered daily.

Pot-on Pure Luck okra, peppers, Nine Star Perennial broccoli.

On the plot Water beans, cucurbits, broad beans, Scrumptious apple, asparagus and onions.

Spot-weed horsetail and bindweed from amongst onion bed.

Cut back plot edges.

Empty nettle-and-comfrey bin. Use pulp as a hearty mulch, decanter and store remaining liquid, and refresh the bin with freshly cut nettle and comfrey leaves.

Check over all crops.

Give spuds a thorough drenching if conditions have been dry.

Plant out January King cabbages, Green Sprouting calabrese.

Earth-up Second Early and Maincrop spuds.

Thin lines of swedes.

Keep podding and top-heavy broad beans well supported with canes and string.

Cut back along the paths, sweep and keep clear.

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