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  • From: Permacltur@aol.com
  • To: london@metalab.unc.edu
  • Subject: Fwd: hole sisters - Permaculture Approach
  • Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 17:44:37 EDT


--- Begin Message ---
  • From: Permacltur@aol.com
  • To: akivaw@hotmail.com, permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu, ElfinPDC1@aol.com
  • Cc: ccpg@arashi.com, scpg@arashi.com
  • Subject: Re: hole sisters - Permaculture Approach
  • Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 11:48:22 EDT
There are a number of factors involved, including your other cultural
practices, the varieties of maize, bean and curcubit, climate including
particularly sun intensity and potential for moisture competition, etc.
Generally, however, I have found that it is inadvisable to plant the three
sisters at the same TIME. Therefore, they would not go into the same hole.

Generally, I give the heavy feeding maize, which I always regarded as the
main crop, a head start so that it is somewhere between shin and knee high.
Given the head start, the vine crops are unlikely to suppress it. I do
inteed plant the curcubit and bean in same HILL or ROW, depending on which
method I use at the time. With circle gardens a la Mollison, I plant the
corn at the perimeter of the pit, the squash or pumpkin in the center of the
pit, and the beans in a concentric circle around the corn. This accounts for
the fertilizer and moisture appetites of each species. The last cultivation
(where cultivation is used instead of permanent mulch) involves actually
moving the squashes to one side. Cultivation is done and on that side and
the vines are then manually moved to the other side. After that, it is
better not to disturb the adventitious roots of the squash (or pumpkin, same
thing botanically). Generally these roots form on the underside of a leaf
axil where the vine touches the soil. Soon after the last cultivation, the
large leaves of the squash cover the soil and suppress almost all weeds.
They also deter some larger pests to some extent. Eg., racoons do not like
to go under heavy cover where predators may be lurking. However racoons can
overcome this fear if maize is the best tasting food available to them. They
are easy to catch in live (box) traps such as Havahart as they will go for a
husked ear in the trap rather than husk their own. They are good eating and
you have to grow a lot of vegetables to replace the food value of one racoon.
In deed I've used small patches of maize principlally as trap crops for
coons and possums.

Selection of the varieties is important, in my opinion. Most maize varieties
of normal height are fine. Ultra early varieties of maize may be too short
to provide an optimal trellis for the beans. This is easily rectified by
adding poles. The taller beans are unlikely to suppress the maize because it
is mature before the beans cast much shade. There are "cornfield" varieties
of pole beans, e.g. one actually called Old Cornfield. Invariably these are
heirloom varieties, including some preserved by one or another Native
American culture. The cornfield varieties are more shade tolerant than other
bean types and have many applications outside the corfield, too. At the
moment I am playing with using them on live bamboo partly under oak, for
example. Squash or pumpkin varieties should be of the large leaf type such
as the various forms of Hubbard and most pumpkins. This enables them to
gather light in partly shaded circumstances and still produce a full crop.

Spacing of the whole system mainly depends on moisture. If you do not have
high fertility, grow another grain or skip grains. In humid climates with
low evaporation potential, such as my native Massachusetts, the form of
cultuvation is the most important factor for sweet corn spacing. If
cultivated by hand, two-foot rows or hills on three foot centers are fine for
all but the very tallest varieties. (Where thunderstorms are a frequent
summer event, shorter varieties may be more suitable anyway.) In more arid
areas, wider spacing swale-like rows that collect water may be advantageous.
At some point, as you widen rows and use less robust (and therefore water
hungry) maize varieties, you can use curcubits with smaller leaves which
include the more drought-tolerant varieties. Shade tolerance in beans
becomes less important too. \

The principal disadvantage of this combination comes where mid-season
thunderstorms blow over the crop. In monoculture, it is easy (well maybe I
should say simple, because it is hard work) to hill up the corn with a hoe
and prop it back up to keep growing. (Assuming that the stem has not snapped
clean off.) Where you grow entirely under permanent mulch, two people can
"hill up" the corn with mulch. Extra mulch is stockpiled for the purpose
and allowed to partly compost to make it denser. Adding urine to high carbon
mulches can facilitate this. One person holds an armload of stalks upright
while the other adds baskets of mulch at the base. Light tamping with the
back of a garden rake is helpful. It is a fair bit of work, but you can save
the crop with minimal damage to the squash vines and beans if you are
careful. And it builds your soil. So it is worth it if you have the time
(and mulch).

I hope that this has been helpful. I'm blind copying this post to the early
registrants of our annual online Permaculture Design Coruse as a supplement
to Nutrient Cycles: Cropping Systems in Section II.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence
courses via email. Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52,
Sparr FL 32192 USA Internships. YankeePerm@aol.com

We don't have time to rush.

A list by topic of all Yankee Permaculture titles may be found at
http://csf.colorado.edu/perma/ypc_catalog.html
Elfin Permaculture programs are listed at the Eastern Permaculture Teachers
assn home page: http://home.ptd.net/~artrod/epta/eptahmp.html
In a message dated 8/24/99 12:14:54 AM, akivaw@hotmail.com writes:

<<Learning that I've been growing maize, beans, and squash for many years,
someone asked me about planting, in the same hole, seeds of all three
"sisters."

I'm not sure I've ever done this, though I do plant them in proximity based
upon varietal habit.

Have you practiced, or can you report reliably, on this "3-sisters one hole"
approach?

Many thanks,
Akiva
Ojai, CA
>>


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  • Fwd: hole sisters - Permaculture Approach, Permacltur, 08/24/1999

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