Today is St John’s Day and Midsummer’s Day. Last night, the faeries ran amok. Today is the last day with over 15 1/2 hours of sunlight. Tomorrow, the Strawberry Moon goes dark at 6:31am, ushering in the Hay Moon. It may seem like summer has hardly begun, but we are halfway through the growing season already. Pruning and planting are giving way to cultivation and harvest. The strawberries are still going strong, but soon they will yield to raspberries and cherries. The garlic is starting to turn yellow and will soon be dug, leaving that bed open for autumn brassicas. The cold frame greens are probably finished until cool weather returns. I tried planting a final round of arugula, and the plants went into flower production before they had put out more than one or two leaves.
I have few Midsummer traditions. Time was when I would gather up the kiddos and we’d go watch the sun rise from the top of the volcanoes on the west bank of the Rio Grande. Then we would spend a lazy day doing very little, trying not to melt in the June heat. At some point we usually headed down to the basement to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream and eat ice cream, leaving a small offering bowl out in the herb garden for the faerie folk (or the neighborhood cats…). But that was when I could dictate my own schedule… which feels like a luxury now.
I do usually make some time in the early morning on each of the major holidays — the four solar events and the cross-quarter days — to do what I call a centering of my practice. It’s really nothing more than noting the time, paying attention to the season. In the warmth of summer, I will go out to the garden and make special effort to see it as it is in the moment, dropping all the plans and worries and frustrations, all the mind-baggage that clouds my perspective. Just see what is there, what is flowering, who is buzzing about. Notice the colors and textures of bark, petal and leaf. Listen to the birds and the odd fox calling to kin. Inhale the scents… actually smell the roses. (Which are heart-stopping on Midsummer’s Day!) Sometimes I will write poetry. Sometimes I will just breathe. The gratitude that wells up in these moments is often overwhelming. It is so amazing to be a part of this beautiful world at high summer!
But this is the bittersweet peak of summer. The sun has passed its annual zenith and will wane in strength even as the Dog Days make us wish for winter. The spiral of the year turns inward. Expansion yields to contraction. Action gives way to introspection. Growth is still strong, but the days will grow shorter from now until Midwinter; and, as the light dims, the green world is rushing to set seed and prepare for dormancy. The hottest days are still to come, but from this side of the summer solstice we can see the approach of autumn. It is time to begin the gathering in.
Traditionally, Midsummer Day is the best day to harvest herbs. Most of the very large mint family — sage, thyme, lavender, balm, catnip, motherwort, and rosemary, among others, in addition to all the plants named “mint” — are in flower now. Some are approaching the end of their bloom cycle, some are just getting going. The various carrot-family herbs are also blooming now. The tickseeds and marguerites in the dyer’s garden are sending gold suns up on slender stalks. The betonies and borages are beguiling the bugs with purple and blue bell-shaped flowers.
And then there is St John’s Wort. This flower was considered sacred to many European peoples. The name is derived from its tendency to bloom on St John’s Day. There are elaborate Midsummer rituals for harvesting these flowers, which are used in herbal medicine as a potent mood regulator. (It’s also a fantastic dye plant, all parts, and shades from taupe to gold to deep burgundy.) It wards off many of the symptoms of menopause and has been shown to moderate anxiety disorders and hyperactivity. It is anti-inflammatory and has antibacterial properties and so is used to treat wounds. It is also an effective antidepressant and has made its way into chem-based pharmacies touted as a happy pill. However, like many mood-altering drugs, it can also exacerbate anxiety and restlessness, and many people get headachy when regularly taking this herb. (This may be more due to not taking it correctly, under the care of a knowledgeable herbalist… those pills on the drugstore herbal medicine shelf can contain just about anything, given that there is no regulation on herbal medicine.)
Herb-wives across Europe would harvest the flowers of St John’s Wort early on Midsummer’s Day, after the dew has dried but before the sun could heat up the plant and cause it to lose its volatile oils. Some funny superstitions have come down to us, though most are probably no older than the Romantic Victorians and Edwardians, who liked to make up ancient traditions. It is said that you should never let this plant — or indeed most medicinal or magical plants — touch the soil after cutting. All the healing properties will earth out of the plant. Gathering baskets or squares of linen were used to catch the plant while the herbalist cut the base, always with the right hand (which ticks off us lefties to no end). Another tradition is that the St John’s Day harvest should not be done with iron cutting tools. Supposedly, herb lore was given to humans by the Good Folk who loathe iron, so herbs lose their effectiveness when they come in contact with this metal. Obsidian blades and bronze knives were acceptable, but I’ve seen more than one reference to silver as a cutting tool, though I doubt this soft metal would hold an edge for very long — and sharpening it would likely pare it completely down to nothing.
I don’t follow too many of these traditions. Using mostly intuition honed through trial and error, I have put together a practice that more or less works for me. I do have an herb knife, but I prefer to use snips, very sharp snips, as this minimizes the damage done to the plant. The sharp blade makes a clean cut that the plant can heal quickly. Dull blades tend to make ragged cuts that are harder to seal and therefore invite infection. This same principle applies to pruning and to cutting flowers. The cleaner the hole, the healthier the plant.
I also do harvest things in the morning and never in the rain. I find the plants recover better from my poking and prodding in the morning than in the evening. I also think there’s something to the idea that an herb’s efficacy is lessened later in the day. Many plants actively move water out of their leaves in the hot sun to reduce transpiration and desiccation; and if you can smell the plant, then the volatile oils are no longer in the plant. On the other hand, cutting a plant in the rain is just asking for microbes to slink into the hole. So I avoid that. Plus, I get grumpy working in the rain, and I tend to project my mood on the garden.
There is also something to harvesting many of the herbs around Midsummer. For one thing, if you want floral material, like lavender buds and chamomile flowers, this is when the plants are beginning to flower. But more generally, you want to harvest leafy plant parts before the plant blooms, at least before it finishes blooming, because after blooming it is done for the year. At that point a plant starts sending most of its nutrients and phytochemicals to seed production or to the roots for winter storage. Of course, it follows that if the root or seed is the part you need, then harvest that after blooming. I dig up mallow and echinacea root in the fall when it’s time to divide and transplant perennials.
I don’t actually use too many medicinal plants. For a while I tried out feverfew to curb migraine. It works for a while, but it also gives you stomach cramps and indigestion. And at some point everyone decides that there isn’t as much benefit as discomfort from the treatment. I don’t have any notable mood disorders aside from a tendency toward a mild and resigned gloominess. I call it Eeyore syndrome and go munch some greens to cure it. I also was blessed with pretty decent skin even as a teen, so though I grow calendula and hops and sea oats, I don’t make skin creams for myself — though I did go through a phase where everybody got lip balm and moisturizer from me for every holiday.
I do love scent, but I have not set up shop to extract essential oils from plants. So I make potpourri mixes and use orris root to fix the scent as much as possible. Then I buy essential oils to add to the mix when the original scent is gone. (My favorite herbal supply shops are Bulk Apothecary and Richter’s Herbs.) I air-dry most plant parts by hanging them in the attic where it is rarely humid, out of direct sunlight, and very warm in the summer. Culinary herbs, the bulk of what I grow, can be air-dried, though I do put these plants in paper bags to keep the dust off. This is how I harvest seeds like coriander and dill too. Put the seed heads in a paper lunch bag, seeds facing the bottom of the bag. Tie off the top of the bag, hang it somewhere warm and dry, and let the seeds just fall into the bag. Easy peasy. The bag method also works to dry garlic in a humid climate because the bag will absorb moisture from the air, yet it allows air to circulate through — though you first need to cure the bulbs a few days in direct sunlight. It’s better to put the bulbs in a bag in a single layer and lay this somewhere warm rather than hanging, but the garlic will have durably papery skin in no time.
Some herbs like basil and parsley need to process more quickly. They lose most of their flavor and usefulness if they dry slowly, and parsley doesn’t dry well at all. (Those grocery store cans of parsley flakes taste nothing like actual parsley… they taste like dust.) So I freeze these herbs in ice-cube trays, turn them into herb butters and spreads like pesto, or infuse them into oil. I use these methods for all herbs to some extent. I chop up fresh herbs, either singly or in the mixtures I use most commonly — for example, chive and dill or oregano and basil or the Simon & Garfunkel herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Then I fill up ice-cube trays with packed herb and a bit of water and freeze it all into serving-sized cubes of flavoring. To store these herb cubes, I use plastic pint freezer tubs and layer the cubes with parchment in between to keep them from becoming one huge block. I have found that you should never store them in plastic baggies (they freezer-burn too easy) nor in anything metal (they come out tasting like metal).
This year I have started to cut some herbs like sage and thyme, mostly to use them fresh, but it isn’t a notably herby Midsummer yet. It isn’t a notably anything Midsummer so far — except weedy. The dill is hardly up this year, and the basil is absolutely irate about the late cold. I haven’t found the sweet spot for chives yet. They do tolerably well for a year, but they don’t come back. I’m trying one more time with Richter’s Profusion chives, which are… vigorous… I don’t recommend them in gardens that don’t have problems growing chives. They live up to their name too well… But that is apparently what I need in this garden. I do have garlic chives, but they grow wild on the bank out front and I worry that they probably taste more like car exhaust than chive. So I haven’t eaten them.
But I do not get up at dawn on Midsummer’s Day to harvest the herbs. If the holiday falls on a weekend, I am not getting out of bed at 5am, which is when the sun rises this time of year (though thankfully it stays behind the mountain for another two hours or so). If it falls on a weekday, like today, I don’t have time to do anything with the herbs I cut… so that’s a waste. But I don’t sweat these traditions too much. I harvest when the plants are ready and when I have time to process the harvest.
However, I do tend to go wandering into the garden early in the morning on Midsummer’s Day — actually on most days of the Midsummer season. There is always something that calls to me. Radishes, a handful of fresh arugula or spinach, peas and strawberries when the rodents aren’t destroying peas and strawberries — I’ve had strawberries for breakfast many mornings this year. What decadence! And then there are the flowers. I love the flowers of Midsummer. Roses and iris, penstemon and coreopsis, monarda and scabiosa and daisies and peonies. Most of the time, I just enjoy their colors and forms in the garden. Sometimes, I brush my hands over them to release scents. But now and again, I’ll cut a bouquet to take into work or to brighten the kitchen.
This morning I might cut some summer savory and thyme to sprinkle on scrambled eggs. It is bloody hot outside this week. I am not inclined toward heating up the kitchen with lots of cooking. Nor do I need that much food this time of year. Stew is just not very appealing in the summer, which is good because there’s not much to make into stew at this time of year. Roots are far from harvest time and the nightshades are all barely beyond seedlings.
But the cucumbers might be coming on soon, and cucumber makes the best cold soup. You have to do nothing but peel and chop the cucumber, sauté it for a very little while until it’s translucent (with or without onions, your call), and then purée it with some sort of creamy base. I use milk and yogurt, about a cup of dairy for every medium sized cucumber, but you can also just use broth if that’s more your thing. Then chill the mix. After chilling, I add parsley and chives and dill. Sometimes I get adventurous and use tarragon and cooking sherry or fennel leaf and white wine. Sometimes I make it a bit sweeter with mint and a touch of honey and lemon. I can make a pot over the weekend and have refreshing soup all week, with different flavors every night if I wish — and no cooking whatsoever.
Which means more time in the garden!
Though not today… and maybe not this week… not until the temperature drops below 90°, thank you very much. I learned my heat exhaustion lesson last year. I finally made my last payment on that emergency room bill in April. Not going to repeat that. Ever. So no intensive work in the heat. Certainly nothing of the usual tasks that predominate at this time of year — weeding and keeping the blackthorn and crap sumac under control.
Still, it is Midsummer’s Day, and pretty soon I’m going to need all the hours I can get just to keep up with the harvest. I can hardly wait!
©Elizabeth Anker 2025
By My Solitary Hearth 
I enjoy your engagement with time and the seasons 🙂
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