The long, hot summer

When I woke up Sunday morning there was a strange, yellowish red light in the house. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Went outside and looked at the sky. Just an overcast day. What was with the light?

It wasn’t until I talked to a friend on the phone later that the penny dropped: the sun wasn’t being blocked by clouds, it was being blocked by smoke from the forest fires burning on Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast. (As of today, there are 185 forest fires burning throughout British Columbia, many in the coastal rainforest where fires are seldom seen.)

People are understandably worried and an emergency meeting is called at the Community Hall that evening. Driving my neighbour Jamie down to the south end for the meeting, neither of us can believe how bad the smoke is. You can’t see Vancouver Island. You can’t even see Mudge. No wonder people are freaking out.

What comes out of the meeting? Well, we all need to pack an emergency getaway bag in case of evacuation (so far I haven’t) and, if the emergency is a major earthquake, rather than a localised fire, we’re pretty much fucked. Okay.

Yes, it’s dry. Bordering on California drought dry. Sprinkler bans in Vancouver and other cities, with special hot lines set up to snitch on sprinkling neighbours. Total ban on campfires throughout the province. (When some total wanker neighbours of mine set off fireworks in the wee small hours of July 4, the Gabriola Facebook page erupted with talk of vigilante justice.)

Here’s how the growing season used to work on Gabriola: Plant in April, sun in May to get things going, rain in Juneuary to get the soil properly moist, sun back in July (if we were lucky) and August.

Last summer there was one day of rain (if you could call it that) between the beginning of May and the end of September.

This year there has been one day with rain (if you can call it that) since the beginning of April. 

I am already harvesting cherry tomatoes. The last time I was harvesting tomatoes in early July was in Walthamstow in the heatwave summer of 2006 when hundreds of elderly people in southern Europe died. It’s crazy.

It’s been too hot to grow peas.

Look at these poor stunted little things. And believe me, this isn’t just my garden. (Of course it didn’t help that these peas were my third attempt, after the fucking birds gobbled up the first two plantings before they could sprout.)

And here’s the dilemma: If I water the garden as much as I should, will my well run dry? Maybe yes, maybe no. The well did run dry some summers ago and was subsequently deepened. It’s probably okay, but am I prepared to take the chance? I can’t afford the cost of repairs if the well did run dry. Nor can I afford to have the cistern filled until such time as it starts raining again. (There was so little rain last winter that the cistern was far from filled.)

So, no, I’m not prepared to take the chance. I’ll keep watering the fruit trees and the berry beds and the tomatoes and the container-planted squash (and, yes, the roses), but I’m officially giving up on the peas.

 Yesterday I pulled up the stunted beets and carrots. (At least the beet leafs were nice in a salad last night. )

Fingers crossed.