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I'm looking for successful planting patterns for the three sisters (squash, corn, beans). Any btdt advice would be welcome!
Anyone do Three Sisters planting?
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Ooh, I'd love to hear from people who have done it before, too. I'm trying it for the first time this year. I planted my beans and squash a week and a half ago when the corn was about 6 inches tall on a friend's advice, but the beans already seem to be overtaking the corn, and I'm really having a hard time picturing how this is all going to come together.
I did last year & to a certain extent the year before.
I'm too lazy to go out & plant at different times so it all gets planted at once.lol Last year I had pole beans(Scarlet Runners). I used tomato cages for them to climb up until the corn got large enough. OMG what a jungle those made. The bean plants were over 9 feet high(after they were wound around the tomato cages). The beans were over 13" long.
My corn & pumpkin didn't do so well last year. I keep forgetting to NOT buy those particular pumpkin seeds so we'll see how they do this year(different kind). The year before my Miniature Pumpkins were the size of regular-small pumpkins. I had around 30 off of 2-3 plants.
Overall my corn hasn't done that well since I stopped using treated corn.
this year I am doing bush beans & every plant has come up. When I did the bush ones 2 years ago we had enough beans for 2 years & I didn't plant as many.
I'm too lazy to go out & plant at different times so it all gets planted at once.lol Last year I had pole beans(Scarlet Runners). I used tomato cages for them to climb up until the corn got large enough. OMG what a jungle those made. The bean plants were over 9 feet high(after they were wound around the tomato cages). The beans were over 13" long.
My corn & pumpkin didn't do so well last year. I keep forgetting to NOT buy those particular pumpkin seeds so we'll see how they do this year(different kind). The year before my Miniature Pumpkins were the size of regular-small pumpkins. I had around 30 off of 2-3 plants.
Overall my corn hasn't done that well since I stopped using treated corn.
this year I am doing bush beans & every plant has come up. When I did the bush ones 2 years ago we had enough beans for 2 years & I didn't plant as many.
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I love the three sisters...hey, if it worked for the Native Americans, it works for me, too!
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It might be too late for me to tell you, but I here is the easy way to plant that has always worked well for us.
First, plant your corn with a spacing of 5 feet between each stalk. Plant the rows about 8 feet apart. When the corn is about 6 inches tall, plant the beans right beside the corn. You can do one or two bean plants, depending on what sort of yeild you need. At the same time that you plant the bean seeds, plant the pumpkin/squash (whichever) in a row of its own in between the two corn rows. Space each hill 5 feet apart also.
If you don't like row gardening, you can plant the corn and beans together using the same time schedule and just space them 5 feet apart in all directions. What you would consider to be the "center" plant in the circle is where you plant the squash.
This worked well for us everytime we did it, but we now have gone to square foot gardening, which requires no weeding and no wasted space. We still do a variation of three sisters planting, though. Good Luck!
It might be too late for me to tell you, but I here is the easy way to plant that has always worked well for us.
First, plant your corn with a spacing of 5 feet between each stalk. Plant the rows about 8 feet apart. When the corn is about 6 inches tall, plant the beans right beside the corn. You can do one or two bean plants, depending on what sort of yeild you need. At the same time that you plant the bean seeds, plant the pumpkin/squash (whichever) in a row of its own in between the two corn rows. Space each hill 5 feet apart also.
If you don't like row gardening, you can plant the corn and beans together using the same time schedule and just space them 5 feet apart in all directions. What you would consider to be the "center" plant in the circle is where you plant the squash.
This worked well for us everytime we did it, but we now have gone to square foot gardening, which requires no weeding and no wasted space. We still do a variation of three sisters planting, though. Good Luck!
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