Last week I attended a fantastic little gardening talk done by my BFF Cassie (you can follow her over at Long Life). Cassie never fails to get me fired up about gardening. She really is an inspiration. I'm not just saying this because I know she reads this blog, either. Anyway, one of the things she talked about in her gardening class was a Three Sisters Garden. I had heard the term before but didn't really understand what a Three Sisters Garden was all about.

A Three Sisters Garden reflects a Native American agricultural tradition where certain plants were grown together to be mutually beneficial. Specifically, they'd plant corn, beans and squash together. These are the "three sisters." The corn is planted first, and will eventually be the supports for the climbing bean plants that are sown next. The beans will just climb up the corn! Fun! And beans have bacteria living on their roots that help them absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use. So the beans put nitrogen into the soil. Corn requires a lot of nitrogen to grow, so this all works out nicely. Squash are then planted around the corn and beans, which both shields the ground from the drying effects of the sun, keeps weeds at bay, and also deters animal pests. Look at the three plants, growing and living in harmony! I think we can all learn a little something from the Three Sisters, no?

To plant a Three Sisters garden, you start with a mound of dirt that is about a foot high and between 18" and three feet across. Plant 4 to six corn plants 6 inches apart. I'd probably just have four at the four points of the compass to make things easy. Also, I'm a science nerd at heart. After two or three weeks when the corn is about 4"-6" high, plant the beans and squash. You'll plant about 6 pole bean seeds in a circle that's about six inches from the corn. Then you plant 4 squash about a foot from the beans. The squash should be the rambling vine type, not spiny squat ones like zucchini. For me, it's all about the pumpkins.

So, after hearing about the Three Sisters Garden, I again went nuts with the garden plans and bought some more seeds: both yellow and red corn, both green and purple beans, some pumpkins, and a type of squash that looks like a flattened pumpkin and resembles a wheel of cheese. The Cheese Wheel squash is supposed to be really good for pies. I'm excited about growing all of these things but I don't know if I'm being realistic. I have a pretty small yard, and I have a lot of things I want to grow. This is also my first year of gardening. I am relatively clueless about all this stuff. I was going to start small. Just a few plants. But my plans keep expanding and expanding!


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