Know of any good Midsummer Eve parties?

I had been anticipating a slow day on the computer; my only plan to chill out and watch the Euro 2008 elimination soccer game. The one possible project might have been to stake my tomato plants. While talking to a neighbor I mentioned the PBS Victory Garden book as a good general guide for the new gardener. I learned my craft from the original Victory Garden book by Jim Crockett. The Victory Garden show debuted on April 16, 1975. It was originally produced and hosted by James Underwood Crockett and was entitled Crockett's Victory Garden. The garden was located at WGBH's studios in Allston, Massachusetts. Crockett died July 11, 1979, soon after the show became successful. At this point, the title of the show was changed to simply The Victory Garden and over the years, the scope of the show expanded considerably to include all aspects of gardening, including: landscape design, history, growing perennials, annual, vegetables and garden travel. The original book was easy to follow; the chapters were arranged by months of the year. You learned how to plan you gardening events.

I've been reactionary this year after a 20 plus year absence from gardening. After the conversation with my neighbor I started to plan the remainder of this growing season. I learned I need to order peas and more beans for late summer planting, and broccoli seeds which will start in pots for late summer transplanting. Continuing my search for the best times to stake my tomato plants I realized that we are about to celebrate the longest day of the year, the summer solstice.

Call me crazy, many do, but this was the first morning that had that humid, summery feel to it here on the New Hampshire seacoast. Thousands of partygoers, pagans and self-styled druids cheered and banged drums Saturday to greet the dawn at Stonehenge, England on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice. The solstice is the one day of the year that visitors are allowed access throughout the night to the stone circle. Representatives of English Heritage, the monument's caretaker, were on hand to make sure no one climbed on or vandalized the stones. Blowhorns signaled the rise of the sun over the ancient stone circle at 4:58 a.m. — although in typically English fashion, the sunrise was barely visible through the clouds.

However, since most European peasants were not accomplished at reading an ephemeris or did not live close enough to Salisbury Plain to trot over to Stonehenge and sight down its main avenue, they celebrated the event on a fixed calendar date, June 24. The slight forward displacement of the traditional date is the result of multitudinous calendrical changes down through the ages. It is analogous to the winter solstice celebration, which is astronomically on or about December 21, but is celebrated on the traditional date of December 25, Yule, later adopted by the Christians.

Again, it must be remembered that the Celts reckoned their days from sundown to sundown, so the June 24 festivities actually begin on the previous sundown (our June 23). This was the date of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Which brings up another point: our modern calendars are quite misguided in suggesting that ‘summer begins’ on the solstice. According to the old folk calendar, summer begins on May Day and ends on Lammas (August 1), with the summer solstice, midway between the two, marking midsummer. This makes more logical sense than suggesting that summer begins on the day when the sun’s power begins to wane and the days grow shorter.

So it looks like there's still time to plan a Midsummer party. I'm not going to put all my eggs in the pagan basket. I'm looking for a used copy of the original Crockett's Victory Garden. But if a dance butt baked around a Maypole could possibly help my plants to grow...?

The young maid stole through the cottage door, And blushed as she sought the Plant of pow’r; — “Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light, I must gather the mystic St. John’s wort tonight, The wonderful herb, whose leaf will decide If the coming year shall make me a bride.”

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The creature, called Swamp Thing, was originally conceived as Alec Holland mutating into a vegetable-like creature, a "muck-encrusted mockery of a man". However, under writer Alan Moore, Swamp Thing was reinvented as an elemental entity created upon the death of Alec Holland, with Holland's memory and personality intact. He is described as "a plant that thought it was Alec Holland, a plant that was trying its level best to be Alec Holland."

Alan Moore's Swamp Thing had a profound effect on mainstream comic books, being the first horror comic to approach the genre from a literary point of view since the EC horror comics of the 1950's, and broadened the scope of the series to include ecological and spiritual concerns while retaining its horror-fantasy roots.

Waldo County, situated in mid-coast Maine along scenic Penobscot Bay, has genuine New England character evidenced by working port towns and quaint rural villages. Visitors are awed by the area's unspoiled beauty. From striking coastal views to sweeping mountain vistas, dramatic natural settings abound. In addition great care has been taken to preserve and refurbish numerous historic landmarks, homes and buildings. Consequently, the Maine of yesteryear is still found here.

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