Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Lynn Montgomery" <sunfarm@toast.net>]

I have grown these three together, utilizing the Hopi method. Plant the 
corn, (blue corn or traditional white posole corn if possible), in circles, 
11 seeds per circle. The circles should be 8' apart in the row and the rows 
8' apart also. Plant the squash, (I use buttercup, which is an almost wild 
original maximus and gives the most useful fruit), in rows between the corn, 
also 8' apart and offset 4' each way from the corn circles. After the corn 
emerges, plant old fashioned cornfield beans. These beans are climbers and 
will twine around the corn, keeping it from lodging. The beans help feed the 
corn. These beans, which are available from many seed companies, give 
excellent green beans, and the dry ones are almost identical to pintos. The 
corn does shade the squash some, and cuts into yields a little, but here in 
NM, this is not a bad thing. After 2 fruits have set, prune any subsequent 
fruits. Plant a patch of little brother chile on the side. I recommend NM 6. 
These 4 crops can keep you well fed and happy just by themselves. One does 
need to know how to make posole (hominy), which develops missing B vitamins 
in the corn and enables you to make tamales and tortillas.
Go to: http://www.lasacequias.org/media/25quevivan.mp3 for an audio 
presentation by Sembandos Semillas (seed planters), the youth group of the 
New Mexico Acequia Association, for how to make posole.
Lynn Montgomery
Mayordomo, Acequia la Rosa de Castilla, Placitas, NM