Piddling potato harvest

Here were my two potato stacks this morning:

From these I managed to excavate a mere 550 g of potatoes, which I think was actually less than what I planted:

Go figure. This happened last year at Everdale, too. I think potatoes really need a lot of soil depth to grow productively. I only mounded them once because I wasn't able to find any more tires, but had I mounded them at least three times, as I should have, I probably would have ended up with three times as many potatoes.

In other news, I harvested my onions the other day. They were smaller than pearls. Aww. I also picked all my barley, which I didn't bother hulling yet because I don't have the time, so I just put it all in a paper bag. The corn cobs I saved have finally dried out and I "hulled" the kernels off a couple days ago (what do you call the process of popping off the kernels?). They look great. Corn is so easy to grow, so I think it will be a big part of my future farm. Soon, before I move, I have to harvest my flax, lettuce seed, and parsnips.

No shortage of tomatoes

My squash are all suffering from this mildewy thing. It's a little disappointing, but there doesn't look to be anything I can do about it. The cucumbers are still growing, albeit very slowly. I'm hoping to have my first lemon cucumber in maybe a week or so.

Both my pumpkins have been successfully destroyed by the squirrels. Whatever. :P

Tomatoes are doing fine, beans are basically done, peppers seem all right, basil looks good, flowering lettuce are going to seed, flax and barley are getting good and dry, parsley is a little paltry, eggplants are slowly maturing, chard is insane and I'm tired of harvesting it, potatoes are looking really healthy (I just wish I had more tires to stack them higher), valerian is slowly gaining size, and I'm sure I have quite a few other veggies that I've now completely forgotten about.

A barrel of rain and a corn conundrum

I was greeted this humid, summery, sunny morning by a beautiful bucketful of rain, laced with apple blossom petals from next door:

It was actually brimming over when I first came out, so it would be nice to find a larger barrel. That bucket holds about three watering cans worth of water, and right now I use about one full watering can per day on my seedlings. Ideally, I would have a large barrel, or two or three, mounted about 4 or 5 feet above the ground, and a hose with a valve coming out the bottom. But I'm not sure it's wise for me to invest that much time and effort into this rented property that I might leave as early as this fall. But it's fun to think about it. It's actually very feasible. The hardest part I think would be finding the old wooden wine barrels.

I realized today that my Indian blue corn is ready to be transplanted (it grows very quickly), so I had to quickly come up with a plan to use up as many corn seedlings as I could manage. I maxed out at 4. (I sowed maybe 20, and unfortunately they're all doing quite well.) Corn needs 15" spacing, according to HtGMV, which left me with few options. I left a spot in the backyard bed for growing pole beans next to the chard (which are companions), and I remembered that corn and beans are also companions (two of the three sisters). So I figured out the arrangement that would use as much corn as possible while also making optimal use of space by filling in the rest with beans:

The circles represent the average amount of space needed by the corresponding plant. The beans I only sowed yesterday, so the corn will have a chance to get a little established before getting taken over by beans. And there I was wondering what kind of pole structure I'd need to design for the beans to climb on...

But what to do with the other 15 or so corn seedlings? I also have quite a few hulless Arabian blue barley shoots that look eager to move out:

Yasi's Place around the corner has a couple raised beds which they call the Wallace Community Garden. I'm definitely going to offer some of my surplus seedlings to them, as well as to my friend Kelly who lives a block farther. But somehow I think I'll still have some extras hanging around.

So I'm thinking of possibly doing a little guerrilla gardening. I live next to some train tracks which are surrounded by what appears to be mostly neglected but sun-soaked land. It looks neglected because it's abominably littered with trash. I might look around there for a spot that's far enough from road/pedestrian traffic but close enough to me that I can still keep an eye on it and do regular maintenance. I expect that at some point they'll want to mow around the tracks, so I should look for a spot that they wouldn't bother with (if I can find a little fence enclave perhaps).