The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

I was just wondering if many of you GIM members use the three sisters planting technique to grow corn, beans and squash? I think in a SHTF world this technique may be a very practical way to farm. Not to mention self fertilizing and nutritious. If you do plant using this method I would be interested in hearing your stories and some pictures of your three sisters garden. Thanks for any future posts.

Here is a few pics of three sisters garden I have seen on the web.

http://www.kitchengardeners.org/blog...istersMain.jpg

http://z.hubpages.com/u/200599_f260.jpg

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

IIRC, Tn...Andy posted about planting using this old indian technique at some point in the past. You might do a search and see what you can come up with from him on the topic. I think it turned into a decent thread.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

There was a thread I started somewhere ( I never have much luck with the search feature ).

But it isn't "self fertilizing" .....you gotta go find a carp fish for each hill.......ahahahahaaa

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

This was the first year I tried this. I used a patch of yard that was never tilled. It worked pretty good this year.

The method I tried was a corn plant in the center of a square foot. 4 bean plants planted in a circle around it (4" away from the corn) and a squash plant in every 3rd square foot.

My problem was the corn and the beans totally blocked out the sun for the squash.

Next year I may try planting the corn a foot apart with rows 2 or 2 1/2 feet apart. Or I may try the giant mound.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

Hi everyone!

I attempted this method this year. The picture I am attempting to insert is of a location where I planted only corn and beans, and they worked out very well together (at least, for my non-existant gardening skills). Where I planted corn, beans, and squash (i planted pumpkins), the results were not as good all around. However, these were not planted at the same time and with our strange weather it could easily be explained. I did it as authentically as possible (no "rows") and just built a mound and planted - no dead fish were used... maybe next year. I believe I had too much going on and needed to aggressively thin the mound of the weaker plants to get acceptable results.

http://markdelano.com/self/corn_beans.jpg

I believe the problem with too much sun being blocked out is due to using bush beans instead of pole beans. As you can see the beans will climb right up the corn and allow room for the squash to get sunlight.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

Companion planting. Carrots do great with tomaters.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

And here I was thinking this was a thread about how the old farmer/daughter joke had evolved into farmer/triplets. Guess I gotta get the head outta the gutter.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

I tried it last spring and was somewhat successful, but the corn cobs were tiny. Pumpkin, squash and beans did well though.

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...eesisters2.jpg

http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/l...eesisters1.jpg

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

I read an article somewhere (goes to look) that mentioned planting clover & winter wheat on your planting beds for the winter. Then in the spring, plowing it all in for fertilizer. Then you can plant your summer veggies. The clover is supposed to keep the weeds down too.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

The Amerindians were growing maize, which is low input.
They wanted dried grain.

You would likely be growing hybrid sweet corn, which is high input.

The "squash" they grew was different also.

Companion planting is a great idea but don't get your hopes too high on this combo.

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

Yep. Those interested in the three sisters may find this of interest:
http://www.nativeseeds.org/v2/cat.ph...e1b1d470360c31

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

I agree with a few things here.

Corn is a heavy feeder. Without fertilizer, it can be near to pointless.

The success of this plan depends on the specific varieties. I see the picture is from the Southwest. It depends on where you're getting to, but in temperate(full-season) climes, I'd try an indian corn, and the scarlet runner bean which is very old variety, almost a throwback. They are mostly for brilliant red flowers, but can be eaten although very beany, and will dry to very large size. Was it Ky Wonder or Blue Mountain that was also a very old, reliable variety?

Squash cannot be a bush type and a surprising number are hybrids. Jarradale is a grey pumpkin, medium-old variety, but is surprisingly good eating, well-keeping and prolific. Many squashes are. Pumpkins are fine but have pale flesh and aren't so much better, so why not pick a winter squash? You can make pies from them the same. Avoid acorn, as the strain has gone so bad that the flesh is near-white, flavorless, and they seem watery now and spoil--the strain wasn't always like that. The turbana-types (butter cup, hokkaido) are especially good but keeping depends on hardening them before storage. I've had luck with Lakota, but not enough to know why, or their traits. Be very careful fertilizing squash as nitrogen can make them unbalanced and ill-keeping. Squash wants compost(black balance), while corn wants heat (nitrogen being like heat). Beans in-between but flowers are phosphous-loving like bone meal. You cannot plant all three at once, or at least tradition in termerate climate has it that way. I forget at the moment, but corn and squash are useless without heat and will rot. Soak the seeds in witch hazel or other brews to discourage crows and scavengers.

Again, corn is not "corn". You nee to know where you're aiming for. Butcher corn is quite good, but very old style indian corn had narrow cobs that dried better as a thick cob holds more water. They are probably less prolific but more reliable. There are two dry corns--soft and dent. You can eat field corn, but it's not very good. Sweet corns have a great variety, but every hybrid is better than any open-pollinated. That stops you seed-saving so know your ground.

Likewise growing in the hill-method. Why are you doing it? Why did they do it? Native fields were a consequence of slash-and-burn agriculture. Without axes, they burned the trees and wood for quick fertilizer of ashes and remained for 10 or so years until the local firewood was used. The "hills" were made in tree stumps or by raking up the good soil they could find. They raked the soil in hills for lack of shovels. This saves the useless work of stump-pulling, plowing, raising oxen, etc. So you have a random distribution of hills in a sheltered pocket surrounded by tall virgin trees. (Cuts wind and a warm microclimate, backed with bird and bug habitat)

Corn must be grown in a square because it needs strong pollination. Any field (a square) will have noticably better production on the lee side as the windward side blows pollen in. This is why the hills--to make tiny pollenator-clusters. This is true of most crops, but for home gardening it's hard to get the boosted effect of large plant-groups. If you want prime seed, you actually CANNOT do it at "home" because some of the plant minimums are 300+ zucchini or whatever. You'd be better off with each farm in your area specializing and trading amongst yourselves--a good excuse for firm relations and cooperation, like weeding-bees or what-not.

Anyway, the idea was to hoe (using a deer's pelvic bone) and weed a lot less, which has the squash as a weed-supressor. It's a poor supressor, but tolerates a LOT of weeds, if not near the hill/root. Some tribes liked the garden scraped spotless(Iroquois), while others (Brazil and Ok.) wanted some weeds present, since the "weeds" in a garden are almost all edible anyway, and hold and deepen the soil. You can think of it as "no-work vegetables" of Ground cherry, Amaranth, lamb's quarters, dandilion, chickory, burdock, and every other "weed" which are mostly better than the crop in everything but winter storage. Because that's why to grow a garden is not for summer, when everything you see is edible, but for the winter, when it isn't.

Having chosen these varieties, and decided to use hills rather than methods far easier once you already have a plowed square, bought fertilizer, and a wheel hoe, harvest and process by braiding the corn husks and hanging in smoke, scraping off corn and drying, "charring" and putting in bark tubs, and slicing pumpkins and hanging to dry on the walls with threads, the same way beans were threaded and hung to dry in the eaves. You should have an open fire in your house and no chimney to best accomplish this.

If you're in their mocs, perhaps growing together is the way. I do it. But I do it because I like to see them grow, and use corn rows in a square, with beans on the sun-side and squash on the shade-side. But doing it intelligently will take a lot of fun with experimenting, growing far more than you have need for just to see what works. (and to get adequate pollenation). When stump-free plowing is so easy and a lot of space is available, you could grow separately and save some trouble, like being unable to walk in the corn rows for the beans, or weed because of the squash vines.

Rattled on too long here. Think about how things looked then, and now, and what you would do. They'd love to have our devices, tools, plows, glass and all that. But I think they'd put it to use in far different ways, which is what growing can do when it's not depending on money.

TS

Re: The three sisters does anyone use this method for gardening?
 

There is a whole list of potential companion planters!

Herbal Gardens ESPECIALLY profit from this knowledge.

Chamomile and Garlic grow better next to one another. Mint keeps bugs away and helps others grow better

Design your garden with the list in mind...lemme find it....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants


This is pretty good