I visited the corn field. I'd been kind of avoiding it since the crow massacre, popping up to plant squash and notice damage briefly and plant tomatoes but without really settling in up there.
I ran 400' of hose up there, took a deep breath, and looked around. It's actually a mixed field, I mean it was supposed to be mixed and corn-dominant but now it's just mixed. We've had a couple days of quite-hot-for-us weather (28C or so) and what is there is popping along.
Of the corns, Floriani, Papa's Blue, and Oregon Blue don't have a single plant left. Those I didn't have enough cloth to cover at all and they never got big enough to hill. I planted roughly a hundred of each of these.
There are a few plants each of montana morado, oaxacan green, early riser, assiniboine flint, saskatchewan rainbow flint, yellow homestead flint. The montana morado, oaxacan green, and early riser I covered but too late, after most plants had been picked off, but I managed to cover them before every single one had been picked off. The flints, saskatchewan rainbow and assiniboine flint, I planted near-first, they came up, and they didn't start to get killed until the crows had killed the flints and flours so there was maybe a dozen plants of each left once they were big enough to hill. Most of these I planted about a hundred of, only maybe 50 of the flints though.
Atomic orange and painted mountain I planted in great quantity and managed to hill or cover, respectively, before they were completely gone. I'm not sure how many plants I'll have of each but more than a dozen, I hope, and less than fifty. I planted several hundred plants each. Of the four painted mountain types, most will be from sweet rock farm and annapolis since I planted a ton from sweet rock farm and annapolis germinated way last, after I had a chance to cover it. The Salt Spring painted mountain was entirely uncovered and germinated first, so it's entirely lost. I haven't looked under the cover at the glorious organics painted mountain yet.
I forgot to specifically note what happened to New York Red.
Gaspe was maybe 80% pulled up. I've heard that it can tiller pretty well, so I'm going to keep messing with it.
Saskatoon white was basically untouched, they pulled maybe 5%. Very interesting.
Cascade ruby gold was the largest, and the crows were starting to work into it when I hilled it. I lost maybe 20-30% but I also planted a ton.
Open oak party, which I covered super early on, was maybe 40% eaten and I took the cover off since it was tenting the floating row cover pretty strongly. I did not hill it and will go look in a few minutes ot see if the crows started pulling.
Magic manna went in late and I covered it pretty quick, we'll see what's under there when I lift the cloth off.
I watered most of the individual plants by hand, with a hose, with my thumb on the water and no intermediary between me and the gift to the plants. I didn't do the cascade ruby gold, saskatoon white, or the flours down on the end.
I also watered in my cucumbers, which were suffering in the heat, and my squash, which look very happy to be out of captivity into the soil. The squash mix is, erk, I'll have to get back on the number of plants I put out but it's maybe in the 40 range. My tomatoes are happily rooting in, everything from the specific cultivars to my northern mix to my promiscuous ones. I probably have 200-280 tomato plants out there in all?
Some of my undercrop of greens on the corn is coming along ok: lettuce, edible chrysanthemum, kale, some beets and chard, some gai lan. Some of it got destroyed by hilling all the corn. I'll replant some of it, even if it just goes to seed.
I have pretty mixed success with the beans, I am not sure whether the crows picked certain types and left others or whether I just had a bad plant. The mix has uneven rows, some of the single cultivar rows are pristine and others are empty. I didn't check to see who got what done.
Gaspe and painted mountain have been soaking two days, I need to plant them and cover them. I'm mixed about whether I'll interplant the gaspe with the flints and dents so it can do its own pollination mix or put it in the floriani bed.
I have my melon grex to put in still, I was going to go that tonight and may still do so when I go up to crow-check my open oak party.
It's definitely easy to tell which corns have some inbreeding depression going on, vs the new varieties and new mixes which are huge and robust.
In a couple weeks it'll be time to start fall crops like napa cabbage and a round of turnips, and to seed diakon and lo bok.
Some crow observations: they picked the far field clean and worked back from it into the near field I had tried really hard not to leave any seed on the surface for them to see and start digging but they didn't do much digging, just pulled the plants. They didn't necessarily eat anything off the plants.
Some of the painted mountain is resprouting under its cloth; I think they tend to pull out the resprouts if they aren't covered.
They tended (?) to leave alone corn plants that were in clumps of 2, maybe I should seed in small clumps instead of with even spacing next year.
They didn't seem to like saskatoon white. I think they preferred red kernels(?).
They seemed to be at their worst the couple days after a rain, maybe because the soil was softer to pull things up?
Edited to add: two dozen homestead yellow flint, maybe three dozen new york red (I planted a bunch). I put in the melons, mostly in with the atomic orange in the empty spots and in the central sandy bed, and an additional patch of gaspe that ran into the empty spots in the new york red. Watered everything in. The crows were starting to pull up the open oak party (it was 4-6" tall!) so I hilled it some.
Tomorrow I will plant the rest of the gaspe under the cloth with oaxacan green and under a couple crates in with the atomic orange. I'll put the very lively painted mountain (it's sending out roots already) in all the flour bare spots except by the montana morado. I might put a little gaspe in with the montana morado?
***realize I didn't explain hilling, which is just what you do with potatoes: pull up the soil against the stem until just the top leaves are sticking out of a mound of soil. I think this makes it harder for the crows to pull up since I can't plant the actual seed 7" or so down, and after hilling it ends up about that deep. It seems to have worked so far but we'll see what watering everything did. It's supposed to be 30C tomorrow though so hopefully the ground will crust up soon. Who knew that was desireable?