Corn like bananas have been domesticated so long they don't grow naturally, and need sowing. Bananas are so domesticated they're extinct in the wild and have to be cloned. Have been for like 2000 years. Matter of fact, the entire genus is going the way of the dodo due to virulent mycosis, same as pollenating bees and amphibians.
(Wanna see a world-wide clusterfvck, wait until bananas disappear.)

Someone mentioned Monsanto seeds.

Stay away from those poison pills.

+1 on rhubarb. this will be your first harvest in coming years, not including the greens you've overwintered.
what kills asparagus on the west side is too much rain.
plant crowns, about 3-4 per person you want to feed. It'll take at least 3 years to get reliable harvests.

cover the patch for winter, but water occasionally.

Stam, why alfalfa? If your ground needs organic matter, wouldn't bagged compost be better?
I've just seen my ground not be productive when adding a bunch of uncomposted green or brown stuff. Takes a year or more for that to break down.
I'm actually paying $200 for a "permaculture" dude to come out and tweak my plan a bit so I can harvest something year round.

now you need a root cellar, pressure canner, and wheat grinder, home drilled well with 12v pump...
you'll have all the modern preppers current faves.

My Asparagus does well year after year and I just let it go but yield versus the space it needs has me tempted to do away with it. Plus the ground is so fertile it's tough to keep up on the weeds.

In addition to the veggie garden, consider an investment in a couple of fruit trees - Pays dividends over many years and they aren't that much work once you figure things out. I've got fresh peaches, summer and winter pears, apricots, 5 kinds of plums, etc. to go along with all of the veggies. Raspberries, blueberries take a while to get established, but then you are set for many years. Fresh fruit and berries run from June through Christmas. I used to have apples too, but the maggot made that impossible...

I grow Reliance peaches - Blooms after frost but requires a spray program for curl. There are some new peaches that are resistant to curl I've been wanting to try - The old frost peach everyone sells now doesn't seem to have the best flavor. Peaches do great on the west side if you have a hot sunny spot, they are so much better than anything you by in the store.

Corn - Plant in a square, one variety, and wait til late May.

I have 7 apple trees already, but I want other trees.

I have 2 huge cherry trees and 4 nice apple trees. The birds get 90% of the cherries. How do I remedy that?

I'm thinking about planting a Rainier Cherry tree with a Bing for pollination. Anyone done well with one west of the mountains?

And don't forget nut trees either. I have a Filbert that does really well and it's about twenty feet tall now.

The only thing I've seen that works for cherries is to let the trees get really big and settle for what you can get from the lower branches. I've tried dwarf varieties with netting, flash tape, even hanging a dead crow in the tree. All the dead crow did was bring all of the crow's relatives over to my tree to pay their respects. The only cherries left on the tree had maggots and rotten crow juice dripping down on them from the dearly departed. Nothing works for keeping the birds in my neighborhood away from the cherries, so I cut the suckers down. Too much hassle.

My general rule of thumb is to focus on stuff in the home garden that you can't get as good quality-wise in a store. Corn - definitely better from the home garden. Also artichokes, greens, chard, rhubarb, tomatos. Fruit - Peaches especially. Raspberries for sure. Winter pears -Comice. Bartlett for canning. Nothing like a good fresh plum from the tree on a hot summer day. Also the clams and oysters I plant on the beach - fresher than you can get at the store, and no limit on how many I take.

Can't wait for summer.

So what about Ed Hume or Lilly Miller seeds? They had a number of the varieties that folks talked about.

Dammit Stam, give it up! Not Territorial, not Ed Hume, not Lilly Miller; then who?

BTW, I always buy Bodacious corn at the Farmer's Market, but they didn't get a booth last summer.

So peaches are a possibility around here? Thought ya' had to go to Yakima for those.

I want to plant an Italian prune tree and get a new food dryer; the ex got the really nice one I built.

I saw a deal on Discovery about their seeds and it said that the hybridization benefits decreased with each iteration.

I'll stay away from the poison pills.

Thanks Stam, but yer damn hard to follow, first bashing Territorial then saying it's your first choice, kinda' like following you through a run. You can make trees out of suckers? Or do they just grow more suckers?

BTW, it's Italian prune (freestone); plums are clingstone. At least that's what I was taught. KK might know about this kinda' details.

Lesbian's city window box? I'll have to remember that line. Pretty funny tho it makes no sense. I suppose salt and pepper (pre-ground black) is the extent of your food seasonings? Don't tell me your taste in food is as bad as your taste in beer.

KK, if I play the Dead on my outdoor speakers, how will my garden grow?

Sg

AM - I saw the Deer Cr. nursery was all cleaned out! I missed the bargains - They had some awesome stuff there. Hope the fruit stand stays.

I had two 40 year old Italian Prune trees I tossed away more fruit than I could eat, dry, or give away for many years. Now I have one left - Still too much fruit to deal with, but there's no other tree I have that is lower maintenance or more productive. The oriental plums are fine for eating fresh, but tend to be clingstone. European plums (and Italian prune) require very little maintenance after they get mature and no spray. Oriental plums tends to sucker badly and needs a lot of pruning.

Stam - The Frost peaches just don't seem to work as advertised. But don't give up. Talk to Raintree about the new varieties of curl resistant peaches. I had two old Reliance peach trees that produced 10-30 full size shipping sized boxes of peaches every year - bigger and better than whan you get in the store. We canned and ate and gave away as much as we could possibly handle for many years (Tacoma area). Problem with peach trees is that the have a relatively short life, need some pruning, and curl spray program unless you can find a good curl-resistant variety. I've started over with two new trees - Just coming on for good production after 5 years . Cut the last old one down last weekend - rotten through the core and about to fall over. Fruit wood for the smoker now.

i planted a rainier tree over at my folks house about 15 years ago. it still isn't very big(about 10-12 feet tall) but last year i did finally get a decent crop of cherries. i did plant it in sort of a marginal place, though, and it would have produced better if it wasn't in the shade half the day!

cherries generally grow fine over here as long as you've got really well drained soil. that rainier is damned near growing in sand so it's never had any cracking problems.

and just what the f is wrong with that!

Stam--can I be on you list fer a prune?

Holy crap! Where do I get seeds for a window box lesbian?

So I'd get the "butch version" from territorial seed?

Do you have that not-so-fresh feeling Bucket?

So what do I grow to make hair pies? An Early Italian Prune or lesbian window box doesn't sound good for pies.