You have a few nice things going! Garlic, in my experience, will grow without a lot of water and does well even in dry/not so great soil. I grew garlic in Ireland on the side of my drive way, half in the shadow of trees, and it was doing really well there. I never watered, but then I didn't need to with the rain there...
I also 'stole' some wild garlic from a forest nearby, and they were doing exceptionally well under trees, and spread like wildfire.

I LOVE rhubarb, but never managed to grow any. Spinach is nice to have. :)
Sorry to hear about your friend's hamster...

Elderberry! I used to bring the kids out every spring to pick some of the flowers, and then again in the fall for the berries. We would usually come home with buckets full of them. They were literally everywhere in Ireland. I do miss those types of plants, as this part of Mexico is a bit hit and miss with growing anything that's not naturally grown here. We have little bugs inside the soil that will ruin pretty much everything, other than Papaya, bananas, corn, and beans. So we had to take a step back and grow what the Maya grow. Makes sense really. One thing that grows well here is what people call weeds, but is actually medicine. All sorts of plant medicine. Any ailment you could think of: the remedy grows as weeds. My son is trying to make a business out of it.

Anyway, I hope the rain falls soon. Same here. We're waiting for the rainy season.