How to grow a "Three Sisters" garden

Native Americans relied on the Three Sisters, corn, beans, and squash, to feed themselves in summer and prevent hunger in the winter. Although vegetable varieties have gone through many changes and improvements, planting a Three Sisters garden enriches both your menu and your sense of history.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• a patch of sunny ground, minimum size 6 feet by 6 feet
• seeds for corn, pole beans and winter squash (if you live where summers are short, you can substitute plants.
• hoe
• hose or watering can

1. In May, with your hoe, clear the ground of weeds and rough up soil to a depth of 1/2 to 1 inch (deeper tilling brings more weeds to the surface). A traditional Three Sisters bed is circular, but square is okay, too. When you are done, soil should be slightly higher in center of bed.
2. Plant corn seeds (5 or 6, spaced 6 inches apart) in the center of the bed. Treat corn plants the same way. Leave for 2 weeks to get established. Water and weed as needed.
3. After the 2 weeks, plant pole beans (seeds or plants)in a circle/square around the corn (6 inches to 1 foot away from corn--close enough that bean vines can be trained to climb the corn; plant seeds 2-3 inches from each other). Return to weeding and watering.
4. A week later, put in winter squash seeds or plants, around the outer edge of your bed (make little hills with 3 seeds each or mound dirt a little around each of 4-6 plants).
5. Keep your bed watered and weeded. Nudge bean vines toward corn stalks as corn grows. Pull less-vigorous squash seedlings out of hills, leaving 2 plants in each hill.
6. If you have children helping you, explain how the Sisters work together: the corn provides trellising support for the bean vines, and the big squash leaves shade out some weeds and keep the corn and bean roots cool in the hot weather. Remember to weed frequently so you don't have to dig deep to remove them.

Tips & Warnings

• You need full sun (6 hours a day or more) to grow corn.
• After crops were grown, Native Americans dried them and stored them in carefully-packed pits in the ground. If the Pilgrims had not found such a pit during their first November, even more of them would have died during the first winter.
• If you like, you can grow summer squash instead of winter squash--the leaves will still shade the corn and beans, but it's not Native American. On the other hand, pumpkins are a winter squash--jusst stay away from those with huge long vines, or they'll swamp everything.