Corn seed acquired this year, so far but probably all as I do not have room for all of these and I have near as many unopened in the freezer.

Tall White
Tall Yellow -- These two are corn used by tallest corn competitors
Breeders Choice, sweet corn.
Aunt Mary's dent
Baxter's Yellow
Casto Family Heirloom
H&M Yellow Dent
Tait's White Dent
Country Gentlemen sweet corn
Blue Ridged White Cap corn

Off topic:
Black Sweet Potato Squash

I have not ordered any potatoes yet but have a list over at Seed Savers Exchange I want to try which are cheaper than Potato growers offerings.

Well I was dicking around with the computer last night before hitting the sack ; ordering English Cucumbers for Sharon for some gawdawful salad she wants to make and decided to see if any potatoes were still available this late in the year, there was some. SO I ended up ordering:

From Grand Teton Organics
Cal White
Caribe
Grand Duke

Fedco:
Vivaldi
Genesee

From Irish Eyes:
Romona
Montana

Along with Cucumber English Chelsea Prize -- from Renee's Garden .
I should have had them ship the potatoes right away but I decided to wait til lMay Day, Grandpa's planting time.

As it is going to be in the sixties and seventies for at least the next ten days, I will start planting potatoes and Corn up North, before I head home and tackle that menagerie.
As dry as it had been I do not have to worry about seed rotting in the ground.

I will probably put Breeder Choice Sweet and Costo Family Dent up North; as I am not putting in any where near the tomatoes I used to I will have more room.
For Kartoffeln I will probably put in Romona and Montana from Irish Eyes and carry overs from up North with the rest of carry overs and new purchase down South.

I will put the squash in both gardens.

I put in my garden at home; it is nice to have friends come over and bs but when you have LOT of work, that can make it even more annoying.
Got the garden tilled and the potatoes in and roses uncovered the day before it rained.
Planting the corn in wet ground was both annoying and good as I did not have water the garden.

Of the varieties listed above few were actually planted as I decided it was best to use a lot of the stuff in the freezer that was up to 4 years old, SO:

What went in down South:

Corn:

Sweet:
Breeders Choice
Country Gentlemen
True Gold
Gold Cross
Kandy Korn
Silver Queen

Dent:
Lorenzo's Corn
Blue Ridge White Cap
Paraguayan Chipa
Dia De San Juan

Might put in one more block of corn as I have space, at that, these are blocks that are approx. five by five with four rows each .

Kartoffeln:

Cal White
Ramona
Montana
Genesee
Sapiro Mira
And about twenty or so plants of carry overs while still tossing over a dozen of good chicken egg sized tubers as I simply have no need for what I plant.

I also put in Black Sweet Potato Squash and English Cucumbers as I have space to do so.

My corn up North will be hip high by the 4th of July.
Southern garden corn Should be at least knee high.
Taters are nearly all up now; I rarely fertilize them but gave some of the vines that looked a little scrawny some flower fertilizer.

Spent three days down home and of those 10 hours on my knees weeding the garden.
Very , very healthy Purslane was the main ingredient of the green carpet (NOT an exaggeration) but this years I did not just let it go as I did last year and paid the penalty for.

Hopefully I got all the Quick Weed, which there was enough but less than expected, and the (^(&%* Morning Glories, which are like the Chucky horror movie.
Filled up two , city provided, 90 gallon garden refuse containers, neighbor let me use his, and a 50 gallon bag.
In the old days I would have buried them but no time and not really worth the effort any more.

Garden was dry, very, very dry, where the Purslane was not covering it , it was bone dry, not an exaggeration down five inches.
I had to water the garden so even where the Purslane kept it more moist I could pull them and not just snap them off.
As expected when I finished, I could see the ones I missed standing tall mocking me., so there will be another go around soon plus I did not have time to do the Rose garden which needs it badly.

Potatoes look good but I have near a dozen volunteers from potatoes I missed last year in the corn plots.
Cut worm got the only English Cucumber that came up but one squash plant will do better now that it is not growing in a Purslane carpet and three others on the other side of the garden look good but are growing slooowwwly probably as that was the driest part of the garden.

Corn is already knee high down South and what came up looks good, some old native variety seed plot did not come up except one here and there but that was expected as the Native Seed Search packets are mediocre at best often for germination.
Have a joyous Fourth of July.

Corn in neighbors containers are doing great! Interesting to see if they produce.

My Festivity and Martian Jewels sweet corns are tasseling together and they are separated by two feet, SO, I may get some Festive Martian sweet corn.

Now the Festivity breed has multi-colored kernels, not just white or yellow , while the Martian Jewel has white kernels on a purple cob, but, the Martian Jewel is supposed to have purple stalks (they are now mostly green with purple tassels) so
I am curious to see if the stalks turn color and if the Festive bleeds over to the Martians.

Height for Festivity is supposed to be 5 to 6 feet, well I am six feet tall and it is well over my head.

I have been planting corn , at least sweet corn, on average three to four inches apart, for decades; now while the plants are very , very healthy I think I may switch to six inches next year and may once again start separating rows by 28 to 30 inches
as my corn down South was planted with more spacing due to not a lot of seed for several types and I wanted to make rows, not clusters, therefore; when I weeded down there, it was easier to do so with greater room between plants and seed.

Also, when the corn stalks are very healthy you are in a dark jungle with little room to move about.

I have dug up 7/8ths, really more like 25/39ths of my potatoes down South.

I am assuming lack of heavy rain took it toll, as even though I watered for an hour to three hours when ever I was home the ground was generally dry.
Now I did not water parts of the garden evenly and where it was hit a little less really was obvious.

Right under the sprinkler if was fairly normal for wetness, slighty glumpy, but all but there it was dry to very dry.
Most of the potatoes came up clean and in that Black Gumbo that is NOT NORMAL, ever. in some places it was tolerably moist, still came out clean, but 8 inches down it was like loose not even damp crushed dirt; I picked up a clump , when there were clumps, crushed it and it ran through my fingers like sand.

98.6 percent of the potatoes were the size of a goose egg down to pheasant egg; very few marbles and very, very few larger than a baseball.
Reds bulked up better than white or yellows.
Out of all that digging I got one bushel; a few years back that many plants would have filled three to four bushel baskets, real ones.
I figured that there would be not normal results as the leaves were still over three inches deep in some places.
Worms were happy as the surface and down about two inches it was moist and there were a lot of them there, a lot on the surface under the leaves.

In an odd occurrence I has a small onion patch about three by twelve inches and two sunflowers came up in it; the onions right next to, or on top of the sunflower roots were the largest, though only golf ball size..
The soil was 75 percent potting soil mixed with the Black Gumbo and I pulled or scooped out most of the onions with my fingers the way you run a feline pooper-scooper through the kitty litter and this was the day after I watered it for 90 minutes.

Picked a bunch of sweet corn ears of varying varieties, Shoepeg was mixture of yellow and white with some cobs mostly yellow but there was not much separation of varieties in space so they were side by side with some rows containing two or three varieties.
I will go back in two days to get back working on the garage and will pick the last and leave the rest for the squirrels over winter as I do not eat much any more and I do not want a fridge full of corn cobs taking space plus I have a fair number there already in very cold water.

I had three muskmelon but some thing broke them off of the stem and picked holes in the side; one was nearly ripe, one gold on the inside but not sweet and the other was green; ate two and put all three in the compost bin, which I water heavily with the roses.

Dug up Grand Duke up North, large yield of mostly medium to baseball size, with a few lunkers.

Last potatoes plants down South are now drying or dried up and will dig later this week, hopefully, while last potatoes up North are showing signs of final maturity but not ready for digging yet.

Indian Corn up North has terribly disappointingly small ears which is odd as it mostly was not disturbed by wind and has plenty of stalks for for pollen on silk.
Sweet corn next to it, despite being beaten up by wind produced good sized ears.

All the potatoes are out of the North garden:

I dug up 60 Genesee, inculding approx 12 marbles, 30 some Ramona with a lot of marbles and approx. 30 White Giant with a few marbles.

Between the two gardens I a little over two bushels in volume but had the South garden potatoes not been mostly chicken to goose egg size I probably would have gotten near three bushels.

I picked the Glass Gem corn up North and found outhat my squirrels, who were pretty well fed all summer, decided to eat about one half of it on the stalk; only the second time in well over thirty years that I lost any corn to critters.
There was still enough for a fall decoration but I am amazed they went after that type of corn as it is crispy compared to most corn.

Carrots are out of the ground there was far more than I expected but gratefully a lot were small, two inch size.
Tomatoes are still on the vine but ripening slooowly now; chiles are still abundant but as most is now the hot stuff I had better pick and use/store some as a goodly number are now drying on the plant.

Some thing is tunneling next to the garden; looks like ground squirrel but I am not sure ; the Badger is gone and his hole has Mums where it was.

RpR, do you just grow the Glass Gem for decoration, then? or is it actually good for eating? I tried growing it one time but we had an early frost that year and it didn't really develop fully.

Weedwhacker said:RpR, do you just grow the Glass Gem for decoration, then? or is it actually good for eating? I tried growing it one time but we had an early frost that year and it didn't really develop fully.

The Indians used flint corn for meal but it would be my last choice for such use but it also can be stored for a long time.

I had not grown it for a long time but this year the other half bought a packet so I put it in for her, for decorations; still surprised that critters scarfed it down as I had dried sweet corn on the stalk plus laying on a table outside for quite some time and they did not touch it.

It is pretty though, but I do not remember the cobs being that small, but then it has been awhile.

I dug up the last potatoes down South and they were mostly baseball size with a few on either side.
Pulled up all the squash vine and got 8 mostly large squash of a type I cannot find the variety packet for. they are very hard, you hack topen with a hammer a large knife.
Taste good though.

Pulled and composted all corn stalks bent and twisted leaving some field corn still standing, and still green, with a few sweet corn stalks still standing.

Found squash type, Hopi Cushaw.

Sharon bought a Butte rNut squash from the grocery store this spring, when we still had some in the basement but many some were starting to rot.

It sat in the kitchen window all summer so I finally cut it open and cooked it last night; gut showed it was getting old but it cooked up just fine.

I still have 4 butternut squash from last year's garden - I think the deer are going to benefit from them, if I haven't used them by now I don't think I'm likely to do so. (and I have a bunch of squash puree in the freezer, most of which will probably be used for pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread )

It is 2 degrees here right now which is 2 degrees higher than the weather bureau forecast.

Making a slow cooked, in the oven Akaushi Eye-of-Chuck roast with potatoes from the garden.
I bought it during year end clearing sale and wish I had bought several more, not cheap , but now out of my range.

Of the four Japanese breeds of cattle, Akaushi is the one known in its native Japan as the "Emperor's Breed." They did not exist outside of Japan until 1994, the year eight females and three males were shipped to the U.S. on a specially equipped Boeing 747.


Potatoes are starting to sprout a month earlier than the normal , even the late potatoes; it is nice to get them in the ground early but that also mean you dig earlier and therefore will also sprout earlier.

A couple that had been chewed on by some thing while in the ground , the ends that were chewed on were starting to not rot but go bad, i.e. discolor inside so I cut that part off.
I am going to have start using a lot of potatoes.

[quote="RpR"
Potatoes are starting to sprout a month earlier than the normal , even the late potatoes; it is nice to get them in the ground early but that also mean you dig earlier and therefore will also sprout earlier.
[/quote]

This is something I never knew (or thought about); I don't think I'll be in quite so much of a rush to plant this year - or maybe I'll make a couple of plantings to see how much difference it makes.

Thanks for that info, RpR!