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.

Berry good(ish) news

This is what I just had for lunch.

French toast with blueberry sauce and strawberries fresh picked from the garden. YUM! The raised bed Cec kindly built for me last year and into which I transplanted the strawberries in January is bearing an extraordinary amount of fruit. I can barely keep up. (I say “barely” because, really, there is no limit on the number of strawberries one can consume in a day, is there?)

Here is today’s haul. 

Yes, that is a combination of strawberries and raspberries.

The good news is that shifting the raspberry plants into better soil in an area with more sunlight has also worked a treat. 

The bad news is that it really is far too early in the summer to have this many raspberries. We’ve had one rainy day since the beginning of May (and it was more of a sprinkly day) and all signs are that it’s going to be another long hot summer. Fantastic! say the beach bunnies. Not so much, says everyone who realises this in not the way it’s supposed to be. May is supposed to be nice and June is supposed to be wet. That’s how we manage to grow fruit and vegetables in our gardens without running our wells dry. 

It’s only just the first official day of summer (so why is it known as midsummer?) and already islanders are wondering how much they dare water their gardens. (If any of them are still watering their bloody lawns they deserve to have their wells run dry.) Not good. 

Oh, yikes. Speaking of midsummer, I need to get ready for this afternoon’s rehearsal. 

As I said on Facebook yesterday, me in a Shakespeare play? I really didn’t see that coming.

Happy Solstice, all.

Five years on

 14 June 2010

14 June 2015

If that doesn’t make you say “Wow!” what on earth would?

Just sayin'.

Blooming (not so) marvellous

Yes, I know. The garden updates are coming thin and slow. What can I say? First I was busy rehearsing for the world premiere of my play, and since then I have been (believe it or not) in rehearsals for staged readings of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Seriously.

And then, of course, there is the almost completely irresistible prospect of spending time on the garden swing with Stella and a book. When am I supposed to find time to catch up?

So today we are going to have a few words about blossoms, going back to early May.

There are vases filled with lilacs all through the house, thanks to a bumper crop of blossoms.

Pretty impressive, eh?

Unfortunately, this is not my lilac tree. It’s Pat’s. My tree has once again failed to produce a single bloom. Apparently my tree will only bloom for Krys. And then (given that she was here in March) only if she’s here at blossom time.  Even more annoyingly, the second lilac I bought last year and planted in the excavated hole filled with sea soil has also (despite the promises of the garden shop) failed to produce a single bloom.

It’s a good thing Pat is very generous with his lilacs.

Elsewhere, the apple tree, which produced an abundance of blossom the first year (and one apple) and an abundance of blossom the second year (and eight apples), doesn’t seem all that happy. It took a long time for it to even begin producing leafs and this year there is not a single blossom. Oddly enough, neither has Pat’s much older and well-established apple tree, so I tell myself (somewhat optimistically) that perhaps apple trees occasionally take a year off. Au contraire, I discover when I later make enquiries at the garden shop. Have I, they ask, pruned it? Pruned it? It’s a tiny little spliced apple tree that consists of little more than twigs. Surely pruning it would kill it? Apparently not. Oh, well. Next year.

Back in early April, the pear tree, added last year, did produce a lot of blossom.

Several weeks later there is nothing on the tree even hinting it might turn into a pear.  So much for my orchard plans. (Yes, I am kidding.)

Leaping forward to June, there is some better bloomin’ news.

 The never-watered, never-disappoints blackberry is once again producing an abundance of bee-friendly blossom.

And every day there are new roses for the bud vases.

Now. If you’ll forgive me, the garden swing calls.

Buzzing

A lovely, lazy afternoon spent stretched out in the garden swing with stellar Stella and a good book. (Her by Harriet Lane, ordered from the library months ago after reading a good review, only now arrived.)

This is one of the best times to be in the garden. The California lilac is in bloom and it is absolutely buzzing.

There are so many bees swarming around this plant it’s difficult to believe there are any bees anywhere else on the island. It’s also difficult to believe that fiveyears ago this was the size of the tree.

Eventually it gets too hot on the swing – first for Stella, then for me. So in I come to write a few lines about how tough life on Gabriola is.

I’m not sure how much bee-friendly bloom is likely from the California lilacs I’ve planted at the back of the house. Actually, I am sure: not much.

For one thing, the trees don’t get as much sun back here. I can live with that. For another (unfortunate) thing (goddamnit), it turns out California lilacs aren’t as deer resistant as I thought. No, deer won’t munch them down to the ground, as they do many things, but, as Donna Deacon has pointed out to me, they will nibble up all the new leafs (and therefore blooms). Gahhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, the California lilac I planted in March…

… now looks like this…

Let’s hope that the parrot or the chicken wire (or both) will keep this clown away. 

Time to shift myself, my book and a gin and tonic to here.

Life is tough sometimes.