HARVESTING GARLIC: This week Dirty Nails has been digging up his garlic.

Yellowing tops indicate ripening bulbs underground and are the cue for lifting.

A fork is inserted to the full length of its tines (or prongs), and levered upwards to expose the aromatic bulbs.

These can be laid out on dry ground in the sunshine for a week or two to completely ripen off, or tied in bunches of half-a-dozen or so plants and hung up in a covered airy place.

Dirty Nails prefers to season his garlic this way because then he does not have to worry about whether or not it is going to rain.

Also the sight of shallots, Radar onions and garlic hanging under his shed eaves pleases him enormously. They represent some of the first crops to be harvested and brought into store.

DEVELOPING FROGLETS: In the pond, scenes of the most incredible natural wonder are taking place at this time of the year.

Tiny froglets are massing around the edges and surface of the water, clambering over lily leaves and duckweed-encrusted stems of water mint and cress. Dirty Nails makes a point of keeping vegetation in the pond thick, and never has fish.

He allows the surrounds to grow wild and untidy, providing lots of year-round cover. By having plenty of hidey-holes both within and without, and no goldfish to contend with, a high proportion of the frogspawn laid in early spring succeeds to develop into perfect miniature frogs no bigger than the size of a little finger nail.

The wildlife pond is thriving and is a fascinating place to watch closely. Alongside the froglets sitting still, perched on plant stems and leaves, or scrambling amongst the forest of growth in the cutest manner, less developed tadpoles swim to the surface.

With back legs forming at the end of teardrop-shaped bodies, they take a gulp of air and then dive downwards with a lazy swish of the tail. Other taddies have four legs but their tails have not yet been reabsorbed.

They wait in the shallows where water half covers unfurling lily pads. The exodus has already begun as Dirty Nails discovered when he chanced upon a froglet in a thick clump of grass sprouting like punky green hair at the base of his water butt.

He cut the seeded heads off, then returned shears to the shed. Areas of long grass are vital to frogs in a neighbourhood of cats, rats and other predators.

Allowing slightly unkempt places to remain is essential for the future survival of the gardener’s amphibious friends.

WORKING WITH NATURE: Having staved off a blackfly attack on his spring-sown broad beans in early June by pinching out the tender growing tips, Dirty Nails is unconcerned by a return in force of the tiny sap-sucking insect pests.

He will be taking no action against them for now. The broads have podded up nicely lower down, so no damage will be done to these. Allowing blackfly to remain on a crop where they can effect no harm is advantageous.

Not only does it keep them off other susceptible veggies nearby but their natural enemies such as ladybirds and lacewings can have a good old feast and increase their numbers accordingly.

This helps to maintain a well balanced predator/prey relationship in the garden.

EXTRACTS FROM DIRTY NAILS’ JOURNAL MARBLED WHITES ON WALNUT TREE FARM: “With every step through the thick wiry sward of myriad ripening grasses, clouds of butterflies rise in drifts from the path yet trodden, dispersing like leaves caught in a gust of wind. They fritter away short distances, then tumble back into the seeded bosom to rest awhile.

"Mid-afternoon, the sun shines from a classic pale blue sky with scattered wisps of fluffy white clouds suspended aloft, motionless but ever-changing if you look away then glance back a few seconds later.

"A Marshwood breeze constantly strokes and caresses the grass tops, rustling amongst billowing hedgerows in tune with the perpetual shaking rattle of umpteen thousand invisible grasshoppers, forever-dripping notes of chiffchaffs and the echoing husky wheeze of woodpigeons lazily repeating from within the leafy copse.

"This is Walnut Tree Farm hay meadows in high-summer, days before the mid-July cut commences.

“Gingery meadow browns and darker ringlets dance all around, and even as I stand still they are everywhere to be seen.

"From ankle height up to the hedge tops, dipping into the bramble flowers up there or the red clover down at heel, this is a living landscape that throbs and heaves as the whole of England must once have done, reverberating to the beat of tiny delicate wings by the uncountable million, bringing the summer air to life with the vibrations created by their deceptively fragile patterns of flight, skipping and playing amongst bees and horseflies, one of which just landed on the back of my hand.

"With jaws like miniature side-on pliers, it sank its vicious mouth-parts into my skin in an attack so stealthy, so silent and so painful that, despite the heat, it caused me to roll down my sleeves, tuck-in and button-up my shirt, then twitch violently at the slightest hint of an insect landing on my person.

“I watched another through a hand lens. It landed on my trousers, vainly trying to get hold of the thick material.

"When observed in close-up, the horsefly is an amazing looking insect, sporting brown and black marbling on its lozenge-shaped body and translucent wings.

"Such a handsome beast would surely be more lauded if it were benign, but this possessor of a painful bite is largely unloved. Working in their haunt, I fully appreciate why!

"The individual trying to access my skin was merely brushed aside, not flattened, as the directness of its purpose coupled with beautiful colourations and patterning deemed it a worthy survivor in these damp parts.

“Where the creeping and marsh thistles are erect and flowering in patches around the field edge, their contorted stems as tall as I am, topped with little barrel-shaped flasks and clusters of mauve and deep pink petals, twelve marbled whites on one plant alone in various marvellous poses and states of freshness.

"All busy about their business, not minding me as I stand in amazed fascination only a spit away.

"Rhythmically, they pulse open and shut their black-and-white chequered wings. Like mini stained glass windows the butterflies occasionally jostle for position, then settle again for more boozing through arching, hair-like straws for tongues as long as their furry bodies. I can only stand and stare, having never seen anything like this before.

"Even as I wonder how to find the language which can properly convey this scene here and now onto paper, a constant stream of marbled whites dancing with others pass across in front of my eyes, dropping in and out of vision as if to remind me that maybe this is one of those occasions when words alone are not enough.”

JOBS TO DO IN THE GREENHOUSE: Water crops daily.

Liquid feed tomatoes.

Keep tying-in tomatoes to supporting canes.

Keep well ventilated.

On the plot Light hand weeding here and there as and when.

Cut back plot edges.

Cut nettles from around compost heaps.

Cut comfrey leaves, allow to wilt in the sun, and apply as a mulch around runner beans or in rows between crops.

Harvest Elephant garlic.

Water broad beans and kale.

Keep water butts topped up in dry weather (use a hose).

Plant out Nine Star Perennial broccoli.

Plant out Giant Winter leeks into prepared ground.

Stuff old wormery bin full with freshly cut nettles and comfrey.

Puddle-in newly planted leeks.

Weed onions.

Check over all crops.

Remove any big weeds showing signs of flowering before seeds are set.

Clear to compost bolted spinach plants.

Liquid feed French and runner beans.

Water courgettes and cucumbers.

Weed around Jerusalem artichokes.

Harvest shallots.

Hoe amongst swedes and roots.

Generously drench fruit trees.

Harvest spring-sown garlic.

Weed asparagus bed.

Tie-in step-over apples to training wires.

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