Opinion

September 19 2023

Well, at least something climate wise seems normal today. It was +3C at 8:00am and -2C a little higher up. This is fairly typical for the middle of September within our grow Zone. Some years a frost can come earlier and sometimes later.

 It is similar in spring. The last frost might happen any time between the middle of May and middle of June. Of course you never know when. There are all kinds of sayings in this area, about when to plant such as “Plant when the snow is off Mt Baker’, a local mountain or “Get your garden in on the long weekend in May”, the third weekend in May. These are fairly good guidelines but there really cannot be any absolute rules in this unpredictable climate.

It felt good today though, just to know that cooler weather is coming, weather behaving as it should. The temperatures have been above normal all summer and the whole of the lower half of the province of B.C. has been in a drought since early spring. We are on watering restrictions and will be until hopefully the ‘normal’ November rain/ snow happens. Many people assume that, because we have plentiful snow during the winter, our water supply is endless. But that is not true. It only works when the water cycle happens as it should. If, after the snow melts and drains into the ocean the weather patterns deposit moisture elsewhere, drought will happen. Our reservoirs hold a finite amount of water. Precipitation is required year round to keep them topped up. The water cycle has changed and there is not the same regularity to how it works any more.  Very much of what we experience now seems to be feast or famine, drought or flood.

I read a post on Facebook yesterday asking how often people wash their towels and what I read actually made me think seriously about how much water is just wasted with our fetish for being oh so clean. That is not to say that I am a ‘dirty’ person! I wash my towels about twice a week but it would seem from the responses I read that most people wash their towels after every shower. That water, which cost time and money to render potable goes down the drain with all the other waste liquids in our storm and sewer lines.  What a waste. Is that really necessary? It could be used to water our gardens. There is a potable water shortage in so very many areas of the world. We, in North America are such a wasteful society.

Plants never cease to amaze me with their adaptations. Even a Teasel knows how to conserve water!

B.C. is experiencing severe drought conditions. 

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/air-land-water/water/drought-flooding-dikes-dams/drought-information

I remember growing up in the U.K, we would bail out our bath water to take to the garden in times of drought. Yes, in the South East of the U.K. drought is possible. It seems terribly wasteful to me to wash towels after every use unless illness is involved.

We are fortunate in my town to have a forward thinking waste water system where, after treatment, the water is used to irrigate farmland. Beef cattle graze on this land and eventually the water filters back through the ground into the river system, then on to generate power before entering the ocean. That water is used well but that does not mean we should waste the potable water that costs a lot of our tax dollars to process and deliver.