by Beth Schreibman Gehring
“After Lammas Day, corn ripens as much by night as by day.” – Author unknown
The ancient origins of the word Lammas comes from the Old English hlaf, “loaf,” and maesse, “mass” or “feast.” Through the centuries, “loaf-mass” became the celebration that many of us know today as Lammas Day, although some refer to this day as Lughnasadh.
Lammas Day or Lughnasadh (August 1st or 2nd) marks the beginning of the harvest season, and is a time to give thanks and count our blessings for the rich and ancient fertility of the land. Our ancestors, people who tended to and revered the land for their very survival, spent this day together, gathering and preparing grains to bake sacred loaves that marked what would hopefully be the beginning of an abundant harvest season. It was a beautiful celebration of nature’s bounty and on this day still, loaves of bread are baked from the first-ripened grain and brought to churches all around the world to be consecrated. Some cultures still call this day “The Feast of Bread.”
In Ireland, it is still completely customary to give lovely baskets of freshly picked blueberries to your sweetheart to honor this ancient harvest festival. Many begin to make sweet meads and ales on this day, another way of preserving the abundance of the ripening fruits. Kneading and baking lovely breads and baking old fashioned fruit-filled pies are a traditional Lughnasadh activity. You might try to make a delicious blueberry boxty, which is a traditional shredded potato pancake topped with butter, sugar, and a fresh blueberry compote!
There is still an ancient county fair held in Ballycastle Ireland called the Auld Lammas Fair. This fair is held every year on the last Monday and Tuesday of August and is associated with the Lammas harvest festival. It has taken place for nearly 400 years, and it dates back to the 17th century. Interestingly enough, this timing is familiar to us. So many of our own county fairs are held during this time, and it is lovely to think that we are continuing these ancient celebrations from a time when legend and magic blended with everyday life well into our own time. A brief video of the fair can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4zfmrT-OdU
Lughnasadh was named for the ancient Celtic god Lugh, who has long been associated with the powerful energies of fire and the sun. This was the time to begin preparing for the cold and barren winter months, by harvesting the first grains and beginning the long and arduous process of preserving meats, cheeses, fruits, and vegetables so that there would hopefully be enough to eat as long as the cold weather endured. It would be easy enough to know whether the coming days would be of feast or famine because one look at the branches and vines would tell you what you could expect. Very often the harvest would be scarce, and new plans would have to be made and resources parceled and shared with the entire community.
However you celebrate it this year, Lammas or Lughnasadh begins on the first of August, falling halfway between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox. I celebrate this day as a harvest celebration, sometimes by myself and sometimes with my neighbors. It is always such a beautiful time of year. The first soft fruits and vegetables have begun to ripen and the trees are heavily laden with lavish canopies of pears, plums, apples, and more. It is high summer and the days are slowly beginning to shorten, but the warm evening air is always filled with such sweet garden scents and the coming promise of autumn’s abundance. Everywhere you turn or step, the hum of honeybees and other pollinators surrounds you. At night, all of the fireflies begin to dance around, lighting up the sky and making even the oldest of us long to catch a bit of that light for a minute in a glass mason jar, the same way we did when we were children.
In these modern days, it’s easy to forget just how dependent we are upon the whims of our climate with its quick and violent changes. I am reminded of this right now because most of my fruit trees, which are usually quite abundant, are just not producing. One badly timed snowstorm in the middle of springtime’s full bloom destroyed almost everything but the late blooming apple blossoms. Because of the extreme cold and ice prior to that storm there were less dandelions than normal, and because the dandelions are the first food sources of spring, there were no bees for quite some time. My potager is really beautiful this year but alas, my orchard is bearing very little fruit.
Centuries ago, I would be relying on my community to help feed my family in a time when my harvest failed, but with supermarkets to rely upon we live with a false sense of security about our food. That being said, climate change and its hazardous impact upon our food system is no longer an abstract concept. Extremes in temperatures, drought, and wind patterns are forcing us to study the phenology of our personal and public landscapes so that we can make decisions based upon an almost unknown and uncertain future.
During this time of Lammas or the first harvest, which is traditionally a time of celebration, I think that we have an amazing opportunity to join hands with our communities and co-create our futures.
I was reminded of this just recently when I was in New York City visiting my daughter-in-law. We were walking her dog past a school and I was thrilled to see a beautiful children’s herb and vegetable garden, playful and colorful but very beautifully planted and obviously well-tended. When I asked her about it, she told me that it was her nephew Romans’ school!
Right before I left, I asked him if he got to work in it. He told me excitedly that he did and he loved to plant in it, that it was a “really special place for him”. He told me about his preschool graduation in the garden and the dancing they did in it. I was practically moved to tears thinking about it, this young beautiful child that I know and love and his connection to the land through this city garden.
We need to keep asking ourselves in this time of earth changes – what is it we value personally and for our families? For our unborn grandchildren? For future generations that we’ll never know? What do we want to manifest in our lives? What is our vision for the future of our public lands and our gardens? Lammas is a time to set our intentions for all the harvests to come.
I feel that gardening gives us a precious and tangible gift for creating beauty both in the landscape that surrounds us and the landscape within us. It’s as if the sunshine, water, and soil are just symbols for the thoughts, feelings, and actions that, when properly tended to, ensure the same richness of experience in life as a well-tended garden, bringing to our senses the most wonderful sights, tastes, and smells!
Whether you’re a solitary gardener or a community gardener, we are all connected through the soil, sunshine, wind, and rain. We are all connected through our dreams of our beautiful gardens, large or small. We all depend on the same resources and they are not infinite. I feel compelled to take a moment today to give thanks for the harvest, and to remember those who have gone before us, who have traditionally worked the land and brought forth its abundance for our pleasure.
Wishing all of you a blessed Lammas filled with an abundance of everything and everyone that you love.
Photo Credits: 1) Loaves of bread (Canva.com); 2) Basket of blueberries (Canva.com); 3) Breaking bread with friends in my community garden after a long morning weeding together (courtesy of author); 4) Part of my potager, or kitchen, garden (courtesy of author); 5) Roman talking to me about how much he loved his school garden (courtesy of author); 6) The Children’s garden in the Queens Preschool (courtesy of author); 7) Cornfield at sunrise (Canva.com)
Beth Schreibman Gehring is a lover of all things green, delicious, growing, beautiful, magical, and fragrant. She’s also a lifestyle blogger, storyteller, and occasional wedding and party planner who uses an ever-changing seasonal palette of love, life, and food to help her readers and clients fall madly in love with their lives! Beth lives and works with Jim, her husband of 40 years, and is owned by 17 full sets of vintage dishes, hundreds of books, two cats, one dog, a horse, a swarm of wild honeybees, a garden full of herbs, fruit, vegetables, and old rambling roses, too many bottles of vintage perfume and very soon, a flock of heirloom chickens! In 2014 she took a stab at writing a book called Stirring the senses: How to Fall Madly in Love with Your Life and Make Everyday a Day for Candles & Wine. Available on Amazon! Join her in her gardens at https://bethschreibmangehring.substack.com/
Ever since Beatrix Potter wrote 
As with any garden plan, sensory herb gardens start with the lay-out and hardscape: the beds should be narrow enough for children to reach into (
The photograph depicts a newly created sensory garden in Maryland’s northern Baltimore County farmland. This garden was designed to be a part of the agricultural tourism initiative that is taking hold in rural areas. “The Farmyard” is a new agriculture venture started by a local farming family to introduce children to all aspects of a working farm, not the least of which is allowing children to sponsor farm animals and help in their care throughout the year. “Farm School” runs all year long offering classes in animal care and upkeep, crop growing, food preservation, and self-sufficiency. As part of the farm school, a class on herbs and their uses is taught. The sensory herb garden is a part of the education of students in the knowledge of herbs in daily life. All students are encouraged to touch all the herb plants, smell them, and taste them. An herbal educator is available during public events to guide children through the garden and explain the uses of the different plants. The focus in this garden is useful herbs in everyday life. (Though all of the senses are considered in this garden, touch, taste, and smell probably are better represented than sight and sound.)
While the herb sensory garden at The Farmyard is on private property and maintained by dedicated volunteers, this is not the case in most public gardens. While public gardens often attract groups to plan and build sensory gardens, ongoing maintenance during the planning stages, as well as after the garden is established, is often performed by staff of the public facility. 
When we love something, it’s impossible not to share it with others, particularly those we care about most. Herbs and children are such a natural combination, it’s easy to draw a child in by offering them a smell or a taste or by telling them a fascinating story about the plant. Then, before you know it, you are making all manner of herbal goodies together.
they all were excited to participate. They loved the way everything smelled, and each little girl went home with a little bottle of lotion and a small bag of potpourri. Now, she is almost a teenager and her interests have waned somewhat, but she still wants to make potpourri each time she comes.
Then along came my granddaughter, Gemma, who not only lives locally but whom I babysit weekly. That provides lots and lots of time for herbal teaching. Since she was eighteen months old, she’s been out in the garden tasting and rubbing leaves and smelling the wonderful scents. On the way to the playground there is a field of weeds, and we always take time to tell their stories. One day my daughter called to tell me that Gemma was “eating the landscape,” so we instituted the rule never to eat a plant unless I gave it to her.
Andrea Jackson is a member of the Western Pennsylvania Unit of the Herb Society of America. When she lived in Baltimore, she was a founding member of Partners in Thyme. She also belongs to the American Herbalists Guild, and the American Botanical Council. Herbs aside, Andrea is a registered nurse and a Master Gardener and lectures extensively to groups ranging from professional organizations to garden clubs. Her particular interests lie in the medicinal uses of herbs, herbal lore, and weeds, which she considers to be the first herbs. When she is not spreading the herbal gospel, she is tucked away in her herb room formulating various concoctions.
The Herb Society of America Blog 