Three Sisters Gardening
What is the Three Sisters?
The three sisters is a term for a companion planting trio used by the native americans. It includes beans, squash, and corn. Each “sister” helps the other to grow better. The beans provide nitrogen to the soil, which is an essential nutrient for strong and healthy plants, especially if you choose a very large variety of squash. Squash plants are very prickly with big leaves, providing shade to cool the soil and minimize weed growth, while also deterring many pests or rodents from eating your produce. Last, the corn provides a kind of trellis for the (pole) beans to climb as they grow. I also like to plant sunflowers because the stalks hold a lot of potassium. I leave the stalks to be rototilled in each year and the potassium helps my other plants to fruit. Not to mention the flowers are gorgeous and the seeds are delicious!
Warning- No Transplanting!!!
One year, I planted some pumpkins really early to help them get nice and big before it was time to transplant. About three weeks later, some volunteer plants sprung up outside in the garden from a pumpkin I had rototilled into the soil the year before. At the four week mark, after about two weeks of outdoor hardening, I transplanted the pumpkin plants outside. It took like a month for those plants to get used to their new environment, all the while the volunteer plants were growing beautifully. By the end of the season, the volunteer plants had almost twice as much fruit, while some of the transplants never quite gave off fruit at all after their huge setback. Pretty much the same thing happened with the corn I tried to transplant. Moral of the story is the three sisters do not like to be transplanted.
How I plant the Three Sisters
Each year, I collect and save one of each kind of squash I would like to re-grow. Then, I leave them out in the garden each winter to allow the seeds inside to cure naturally. In the spring I rototill the dried out squashes into the ground along with corn seeds sprinkled in rows. I also add extra squash seeds I have bought, and outline my garden with sunflower seeds. I have found that planting this way is a little more nerve racking because you have to guess which plants are what based on where you left each dried pumpkin before rototilling. It also takes a little longer than average for the seeds to pop up, depending on how early you rototill. However, I have found the results and ease make it far worth it.
Three Basic Steps
- Plant your corn and squash seeds outdoors in early spring/ late winter. If you would like to plant more traditionally, I would recommend planting the corn in rows first, then planting the squash about a week or so later. Both plants can handle cold temperatures as a seed. I usually plant my squash seeds at the end of April here in utah, and it works good.
- Plant your beans after the corn is a couple inches high. Keep in mind that the beans grow faster at the early stage than both the corn and pumpkin do. I wait until the corn is at least five inches tall to plant the beans. One bean per every two cornstalks seems to do the trick- but it will look a like a jungle!
- Thin out your squash plants (and sunflowers if you planted any). The amount of thinning depends on the squash and sunflower varieties of your choice. I would keep your empty seed packets handy to look back at. I usually put about 2 around each sunflower and about 6 feet between each squash (usually pumpkin). Make sure you are keeping up with the weeds as well.
Three Sisters No-No’s
A mistake you do not want to make is planting your corn too late in the season. Corn has a long growing season, typically ranging from 85-105 days. It also can be easily choked out or delayed by weeds or the pumpkin plants themselves. I made this mistake my first year trying the three sisters technique and the corn never produced any fruit. Another no-no is replacing the corn with sunflowers. I thought the beans could grow up sunflowers instead planting so much corn, but I was wrong. The sunflower stalks were too prickly and the beans did not seem to want to climb them.
That’s all you need to start out! You can check out our store (here) for my favorite three sisters combo, as well as my favorite brands for buying seeds (here).