Saturday, May 5, 2018

Three Sisters gardening: corn, beans, & squash

Hello my garden people. It is May 4th, and the Iris flowers have bloomed today so beautifully. I didn't notice them even trying to form heads at all, so they made a speedy bloom.



































Today was supposed to rain but I waited to realize that it wasn't going to rain until later in the night. So this afternoon I tilled two spots in the second garden and planted in three sections.

Here was already tilled, so I quickly hoed 7 rows of different varieties of greens next to the potato patch. There's Tatsoi, a Chinese mustard green; Georgia collards, Bibb lettuce, Black seeded simpson, Red Cinnamron, dwarf curly kale, and Swiss Chard in the back next to the woods.

Mounds of potatoes merging into rows of greens



































In the pic below are the two spots I tilled today. On the end, I hoed and planted in Cushaw in the front row, then two rows of Sweet Dumpling squash, two rows of Delicata squash, then in the back I planted two rows of Hickory King corn. Next to this section I planted in Half runner beans which I will trellis. Fortunately I did all this before it rained.

Sowed squash, corn, and beans



































I think it's going to rain tomorrow as well, so I'm going to wait for the next dry days to till this section and plant more varieties of beans and corn to create the Three Sisters gardening method.

Need to till and plant more corn and beans here



































The method is noted as being beneficial because the beans supply nitrogen, the corn supplies a post for beans to grow on, and the squash suppresses weeds.

This method has been passed down from Native American tradition and is used widely among many gardeners. Corn, beans, and squash are of course southern American traditional foods as are potatoes and fried greens, so naturally these are the veggies I'm growing because I was raised on these foods. Try this method in your garden as well.

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