Three sisters in a bed.- veg that is :)

[michael johnson]

I have just been watching a very enjoyable television program called grow your own veg, and they showed a method on there that I have never heard of before,

The three sisters- beds, is apparently adapted from a method once used by some very old native Indian tribes where all the seed planting was done by the women in the tribe.

Using plants that are symbiotic towards each other to create a very successful crop, the three types that are used are- tall variety sweet corn, climbing pole beans, and Squashes of various types and/or courgettes.

The pole beans are planted first to get them established, then the sweet corn plants are put in at the side of the pole beans, a couple of weeks later the squashes are added on the opposite side of the corn plants fairly close to them.

Aparently the pole beans provide their own nitrogen in the root nodules and soil that also serve to nourish the corn and squashes in growth, the corn shoots up to full height eventually , around whos stems the pole beans climb as well, and some types of squashes climb a bit too, the squashes also cover most of the ground with their leaves and runners-giving shade and stop the ground from drying out so much also keeping down the weeds , it was quite a sight to see six foot tall corn with plenty of cobs growing on them nice and fat, with pole beans hanging off the corn stem in bunches most of the way up, and lower down near the base were sizable squashes of several kinds growing in profusion.

all three types of plants totaly complimented each other and helped each other to reach their goal.

I was quite impressed by it all.

[Zana]

No matter how many times I see it, I find it fascinating. I have a few native Canadian friends that use the sisters planting method all the time. They also have a few other combos. I'll have to ask which ones, because I can't recall right now.

Thanks for the reminder about the method.

[velikipop]

Michael,

I tried this several years ago because of the elgance and simplicity of the concept. I started with the corn first and then the rest. The result was a mess of tangled plants, probably because I tried to squeeze too many plants into a small space. The pole beans dominated and bent the corn while the squash grew on top.
I'll probably try it again when I have a lot more space.
BTW West Coast Seed in Delta BC sells a Three Sisters mix.

Aex

[carolyn137]

If one just Googles three sisters one can find link after link on the Three sisters method of growing corn and pole beans and winter squash.

You have to use corn that can support the beans and you have to use beans that can take some shading, and the squash fills in inbetween.

The reason this was done was more for economy of space than anytthing else, b'c even tho beans are N fixers, the amount of usable N that they produce is very small indeed and is not that available to nearby plants.

I live in upsate NY where the Iroquois Nation tribes, who were mostly agrarian tribes, lived and farmed.

And there are many exhibitions and demonstrations here every year showing how this method worked.

The Mandan tribe out west is another tribe that used this method.

To wit, the warrior tribes such as the Apache and Cheyenne weren't into farming as much as they were in defending their territories by more, shall we say, aggressive means.

Last I knew SESE had the correct corn and bean varieties to use and almost any winter squash type works well.

[Althea]

ATTRA has the best guide to Three Sisters, or four if your plant sunflowers too, that I've seen. The site names various varieties of the sister tht were traditionally planted and includes common layouts from different tribes.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/complant.html

I would love to try this garden if I had more space.

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

'... the warrior tribes such as the Apache and Cheyenne weren't into farming
as much as they were in defending their territories by more, shall we say, aggressive means."

Ouch! Justa tad racist ...

"Although popular Inah writing has made much of Apaches as warriors and raiders,
most of their traditional subsistence was owed to agriculture and wild food harvesting.
Buskirk (1986) estimated that the traditional diet of many WesternApache groups
was comprised of up to 90-100% wild and agricultural foods,
with only the smallest portion made up of products obtained in raids."

http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_p0...36_282_286.pdf

[carolyn137]

Sorry, I didn't mean to be racist, as you call me.

I'm just much more conversant with our NE Native Indian tribes.

If my brother were here, he would have corrected what I wrote b'c he's the Indian expert in the family.

Ignorant am I? Probably not, just a bad moment in typing too fast and not paying attention.

So which tribes would you call primarily non-agrarian?

[travis]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

So which tribes would you call primarily non-agrarian?

Innuit and Yuppies

[carolyn137]

Originally Posted by Papa Vic

Innuit and Yuppies

OK Bill I asked for that.

Carolyn

[michael johnson]

Interesting replies-if not very entertaining

[bluelytes]

PAPA, LOLROF!! Just HOW is Carolyn speaking the TRUTH = Racist?? I cannot speak to the mid-western tribes aggressive or not aggerssive nature, but I know that inter-tribal raids by the pacific northwest tribes were routine.

KCTO, LOLROF. "ethnocentric ignorance" = a term thrown around by those that either refuse to see the truth, or are self-deluded, or both, IMHO. See my post to PAPA.

[Althea]

Thank you Papa Vic. That was my response on reading the post too, but I thought I'd just try to move the thread along while shaking my head, pretending I really didn't read what I had just read.

Bluelytes, it is the lack of knowledge combined with the tongue in cheek, "shall we say" that imo, classifies the statement as racist. No, I won't say... .

Carolyn, thank you for being forthcoming about your error.

Pap Vic gave some info on the Apache. Here's some Cheyenne background.

"The Cheyenne tribe were mostly hunters and farmers. The men's job was to hunt and the women's job was to set up the tepee. They hunted buffalo and turkey and they grew many crops. Some crops they grew were corn, beans, squash, and tobacco. They also gathered wild fruits and roots."

http://hillside.needham.k12.ma.us/cyberventues/
mckenna_nat_am/cheyenne_mandan/manchy.html

"Cheyenne -- A powerful Algonquin speaking tribe of the plains. In 1680, when they first met white people at de la Salle's fort in Illinois, the Cheyenne like their other Algonquin neighbors, were a farming people in what is now Minnesota. Before the end of the century they had migrated to the banks of the Missouri River in the Dakotas where they continued to practice agriculture. However, in the XVIIIth century the Cheyenne acquired the horse and found that they could improve their lives by living the plains style nomadic existence, following the buffalo herds."

http://www.hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.
GlossaryIndianNations.html

Besides farming, their knowledge of wild plants was extensive.

"There are many plants in current use by the Northern Cheyenne. Appendix F
lists 170 plants with documented traditional cultural uses. There are a minimum of 81
separate ceremonial uses for these plants, 184 medicinal uses, 67 industrial uses and
94 subsistence uses.. According to the 2001 traditional economic and subsistence
survey, 100 of 112 (89%) people reported gathering plants for food and over 84% (95 of
112) gathered plants for medicines or ceremonies."

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cachef7ib7DtbmoJ:
http://www.mt.blm.gov/mcfo/cbm/eis/N...rrativeReport/
Chap7.pdf+cheyenne+%22traditional+diet%22+94&hl=
en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

[amideutch]

Speaking of American Indians, it reminded me of my American Indian heritage from my fathers side of the family. The "Narragansett". Ami

[LoreD]

I believe from the articles that I read that the plants have to be grown in a very specific way.

I tried planting all of them together in my corn rows. The beans grew up wrapped themselves around the cornstalks and pulled the top half of the corn down so that the tassel was on the ground.

The next year I tried it with bush beans and the squash just grew over the top of the beans and I didn't get any beans.

Also, I'm not sure if the modern sweet corn is suited to this. I think that they usually grew corn for grinding and that grew about 12 ft. tall.

LoreD

[shelleybean]

SESE suggests using either Genuine Cornfield or Cherokee Cornfield pole beans because they tolerate more shade and they recommend Hickory King corn (listed under dent corn) because the stalks grow to 12 feet tall. And as Carolyn said, pretty much an squash should work. You can read about these beans and this corn at www.southernexposure.com if interested.