
Lammas (England) Lughnasadh (Ireland,Scotland & Isle of Man) and Gŵyl Awst (Wales) are the names associated with this time of the year throughout the British Isles. Marking and celebrating the first of the harvests bread was made from the first grains gathered, in Ireland Bilberries were ripe for the picking and ‘first-harvest’ dances, sports, feasts took place.
Hill climbing, well dressing and straw crafts were popular as ways to mark this turning point of the year.

For us at Talking Trees it marks the launch of the 2025 Country Wisdom & Folklore Diary and is truly the point of harvesting all our efforts and endeavours to keep alive the old ways and celebrate the year. We love that it’s the time we can share our snippets that we have collected whilst travelling around the British Isles. In this our 15th year we are truly grateful that people are still as interested, as we are, in these old ways & wisdoms, fairs & festivals, curiosities and eccentricities of our isles. Combine this with a love and respect for Mother Nature and an interest in observing astronomical occurrences and we have all the ingredients that make up our diary.

This year we are delighted to tell you about the diary’s stitched binding, a greener and more functional binding and its gatefold cover that gives flaps to keep your place as you travel through the pages of the year. We have continued to use an accessible font on coloured paper to enable easier reading for as many people as possible together with sustainable printing production methods. Every year we try to take another step to making our environmental footprint as gentle as possible.
The front cover of the diary celebrates ancient trees, and is inspired by the Major Oak of Sherwood Forest. Throughout the diary we have a few other references and stories relating to our trees. We see this years diary as coming from the woodland to the clearings where wildflowers grow and hares leap.

The last of the pyramid orchids are flowering & replacing their injection of vibrant pink is Rosebay Willow Herb. This prolific large wild flower is seen on grass verges and wastelands and is often considered an invasive weed, however this gloriously coloured plant offers a burst of flaming pink in swathes throughout our Isles and beyond. It is known as fireweed in North America with a saying ‘When fireweed flowers turn to cotton summer is forgotten’.
This plant is also incredibly useful , you can weave baskets from its stem, and use its seed ‘fluff’as tinder, make a sweet jelly, a healing tea and some even use it to add to ice cream ingredients.

Harvest suggests an ending to a cycle and also allows us to begin the next. It is not an end but it is a time to reap what has been sown. Hopefully our efforts throughout the year lead us all to a good personal harvest that we can celebrate but if things haven’t gone quite as hoped we know we can begin again and sow new seeds that still have time for fruition before year’s end.

Traditionally a libation is offered to the earth to show the respect it deserves for allowing our crops to grow. Some communities buried a bit of the harvest loaf and poured a little drop of ale, others buried last year’s corn dolly(this happens at many different times according to local tradition). The idea of giving thanks is one that we should carry with us and not taking what we have for granted. If you can maybe offer a libation to the earth or you could say thank you to someone in your community for their efforts in sustaining us. From bakers to brewers we all live better lives for their efforts.

And so we give thanks to you for your support and kindness, we never take you for granted and always have you in mind as we create the diary. We hope you will enjoy this year’s offering.
From August 2nd the Wall Calendar will also be available on our website and a little later the new Yuletide countdown ‘advent’ calendar and fingers crossed The Little Book of Samhain/All Hallow’s Eve - so please do keep a look out on our website or Etsy shop for new bits and bobs.
Wishing you a bountiful harvest and joy as you ponder on the next seeds to sow xx
Truly beautiful work, I would love to see a Samhain countdown calendar, also have you ever thought of maybe creating wheel of the year altar cards (Yule, Imbolc etc)
Keep up the amazing work.