Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Dean" <andeanfx@midrivers.com>]

When I was a kid, way back when.....  Actually, our neighbor who had a large family planted beans and corn together and the beans climbed the corn.  I would think they would climb into the sunlight above the pumpkin.  I too have wondered about the planting schedule.  Just watching ours it seems the beans would outgrow the corn so need to be planted later and use pole or climbers rather than bush.  Not sure about the pumpkin timing (or any of it for that matter but it is interesting).  Dean

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----- Original Message -----

From: Dieter Brand

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:17 AM

Subject: [Livingontheland] The Three Sisters

I have heard about the cultivation of beans, corn and pumpkin, called the three sisters, practices by the American natives.  However, I don’t know how this is done in practice.  Are these plants cultivated at random in the same field, or are they cultivated in rows in close proximity to each other?  Are they sown at the same time, or are the sowing dates staged?  How exactly is it done? 

 

Anyway, too impatient to thoroughly investigate the matter, I went ahead this year and tried it out.  I broadcast all seeds at random into an existing stand of weeds, trampled down the weeds, spread ½ inch of compost and toped everything with 1 to 2 inches of mulch.  It all went well, except that now, nearly 3 months later, the pumpkin leaves are starting to shade the bush beans.  The beans have flowered, and I have started harvesting, so perhaps it doesn’t matter all that much that the beans are in the shade of the pumpkin leaves.  I wonder, once the seed pods have formed, is photosynthesis via the leaves still necessary, or can the seed pods mature solely with the energy supplied by the roots?

 

I also thought that perhaps if I had delayed sowing the pumpkins by 2 to 3 weeks, I might have been able to avoid this problem.  What do you think?  Any information regarding the 3 sisters is welcome.

 

Dieter

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