Some farmers throughout the Saanich Peninsula say it's been a rough year for fruits, veggies and livestock due to unpredictable weather patterns, but they hope the consistent warm weather this summer will help harvests return to normal.
Satnam Dheenshaw, owner of Gobind Farms in Saanichton, says they are sitting on over 1,000 cases of zucchini, and hundreds more cases of raspberries, blackberries, loganberries, boysenberries and strawberries after the warm weather brought in a bountiful harvest, however, he's been having trouble selling his produce.
"Sales are slow. There's a lot of [grocery] stores bringing in [mainland] B.C. berries, and people are pissed off," said Dheenshaw. "When you're on the Island, you're dependant on Island stores."
While his storages are overflowing with berries and zucchini, he's planning to start harvesting garlic soon because the recent heat allowed for an earlier harvest, "but with so much berry-picking happening right now, it's hard to free up the crew to go in there and do the garlic when it's not at the top of the priority list."
Dheenshaw said that the surprise cold snap in the spring did prove to be tough for his plants, and a lot of his berries died, so he is now happy to see the weather warming up and see his plants thriving once again.
Andrew Engqvist, owner of Andrew's Farm Stand, agreed that it was a hard spring for his plants, but the summer has proven to be good for his garlic, strawberries and carrots.
"It was a weird year with the warmer-than-average winter and then the cool spring and cool start to the summer," said Engqvist. "We had a little bit of damage in the garlic but our strawberries have been fantastic, the heat's good for them now."
As vegetables and fruits are bouncing back from the cold snap, beekeepers say their problems are only just starting.
"The bees pretty much ate any honey they collected during the springtime, they ate everything during the cold weather," said Lindsay Dault, co-founder of Country Bee Honey Farm.
She said in the early-spring, the bees stocked honey as they normally would, which would usually be harvested for a number of their bee-related products, but when the cold snap arrived the bees ate most of the stocks, resulting in a lower honey crop coming into the summer.
Bill Cavers, president of the Capital Region Beekeepers Association, said bees had problems getting food during the spring cold snap, as flowers and other plants were dying, so they are forced to eat their own honey, which can be hard for beekeepers to come back from.
The bees at Country Bee Honey Farm typically rely on blackberries grown at surrounding farms for food, but as other farmers have said, blackberries were tough to grow over the spring.
"You can harvest the hunt, you can keep your fingers crossed and pray that the rest of the season there's a significant amount of flowers, but then at the end of the season you have to walk a fine line between taking the harvest of honey off, and leaving enough for the bees to survive the winter," said Cavers.
The honey farm is expecting a low crop this year, but their hoping their numbers are strong enough to get enough food for next winter.
