Corn, beans & squash = synergy

Commonly called the three sisters.

• An age old tradition dating back to Native Americans.
  • Some people add a 4th sister... the sunflower...

I loosely followed the instructions from this web page

• Corn, beans & squash = synergy
  • Corn provides a "trellis" for the pole beans to grow up.
  • Beans provide needed nitrogen to the soil.
  • Squash provides a living mulch to keep weeds down and moisture up.
    Also, supposedly, will cut down on raccoons stealing your corn, since they are prickly leaved.
    • Companion planting at it's best!

Yup, yup, this is me...

There are no hard and fast rules here, so feel free to come up with your own design.

✔ Build hills for the corn & beans spaced 5 foot by 5 foot.
✔ Plant 8 corn seeds in a 6-inch square.
✘ 2 seeds at each corner. I opted to do 1 seed at each corner and the other 4 between those around the perimeter making a square...
✚ TTD When corn is 4" tall, thin to 4 plants per hill and plant beans
✚ ✔ ✘ Plant hills of squash between the other hills when you plant the beans. I went ahead and planted these. And I didn't use just squash. I planted some Sugar Baby watermelons, 2 kinds of big watermelons, Hale's best cantaloupe, Waltham butternut squash and cushaw squash.
✚ TTD Mulch with black plastic, grass clippings and straw.

Here's what I ended up with...
Total size is about 15' x 35' of garden space.

Corn

I used 3 varieties.

• Planted 9 hills of the earliest variety. 63 days!!!
  Early Sunglow
  • It's supposed to have 2 ears / stalk, so 9 hills times 4 plants times 2 ears = 72 ears Woohoo.
    • I planted 6 hills each of:
      • white (Silver Queen 92 days & 2-4 ears / stalk) and
      • yellow (Golden Bantam 80 days 1-2 ears / stalk) varieties.

I find it easier to plant all at once and use varieties that mature at different times. The other option is succession planting, but who knows what I'll be busy doing in a few weeks, and a guy can only remember so many things... I know, I know, I do write things down, but then have trouble finding the notes when I need them! haha

• I won't quite make July 4th with my Early Sunglow, but it should be ready about July 12th.
  • Next will be the Golden Bantam around July 29th.
    • Last but not least Silver Queen should be ready around August 10th.
• Want to find out when your veggies will be ready?
  Head on over to this handy web page.

Melons

3 varieties of watermelons

• Sugar Baby
  • Only 8", so they fit nice in the frig and perfect for a meal or sharing with my beautiful wife.
    • 75 days. Smallish vines compared to some of the others.
• Crimson Sweet
  • Large 25 pounders
• Charleston Grey
  • 28-35 pounders!!!

Hale's Best Cantaloupe

• I've had good luck with these, because they are drought tolerant. They have produced where others failed when we had a dry year.
  • And they are very good!

Squash

Waltham Butternut Squash

• Excellent for storing!

Cushaw Squash aka cushaw pumpkin aka Tennessee sweet potato aka Cucurbita squash

• I grew these a few years ago. Only got 1, but that thing was BIG! We used it for decoration on the front porch. This year I plan on actually eating them!
  • An excellent keeper.
    • Never heard of them? Here's an excellent article about them

Pole Beans

I haven't picked these up yet. I might go with the tried and true Kentucky Blue variety or try something new like the yard long variety. Sylvia's nephew grew these and he said they were great and his kids thought they were awesome!

• I might try growing some pole Lima beans, too.

How To

Here's a pic of all the corn/bean hills started spaced 5'x5'.
Don't worry about all those weeds they get pulled in our next step...

Making the hills...
Spade up about a 2 foot diameter circle of dirt. Piling it to the middle.

Sit down and use your hands to crumble up any large clods.
This is fun!
Pat the dirt into a round cone.
Use your fist to pound a 6" x 6" planting area on the top. Leaving a ridge around the perimeter to hold water.
Lay out your seeds. Use your finger to push them in the soil about 1-2"
Pat the soil again to fill in the planting holes.

• Mix in 16-16-8 or 15-15-15 fertilizer before planting.

You should end up something that looks like this...

NOTE: When you water, pull up dirt as needed to the edge of the top. If water starts overflowing on one side before the entire basin is filled, you need to pull up some dirt. I used a watering can, since I had a bit of trouble controlling the velocity coming direct from the hose. You don't want to make holes with your watering...

After planting some melons in between and watering.

A 3 sisters video

A 3 sisters planting at the Oneida Native American farm

Some other 3 sisters web pages:

• Old Farmer's Almanac
• Rodale's Organic Life
• HGTV
• Cornell University
• Mother Earth News
• Wikipedia

Reminders to me...

• Fertilize corn with 46-0-0 at 6 inches tall and again when start producing silk.
• Harvest corn 17-20 days after the silks appear.
• Blanch and freeze corn you cannot eat fresh
• Leave 2 inches of stem when harvesting squash.
• 43 Cushaw Squash recipes on Pinterest

Up for discussion

Have you ever grown the 3 sisters?

• If so, tell us what you thought...

Does anyone know how this should fit in with crop rotation plans?

Does anyone recognize that weed with the white flowers?

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Who I am @WizarDave		The KEY to Life!