Three Sisters Garden

As older sisters often do the corn offers the beans needed support.

Three sisters garden. You ll want to plant your three sisters garden in late spring once the danger of frost has passed. When maize crops grow and attain some specific height squash followed by beans are planted around the maize crop. Utilizing the corn beans and squash together in your garden draws upon centuries of native american agricultural traditions and expertise. This centuries old native american interplanting method is a precursor to what is now known as companion planting an organic gardening technique that attracts beneficial insects encourages pollination and natural pest management and plays off the strengths of one plant to help its neighboring.

Below we feature guidelines for one type of setup. Story of the three native american sisters. Plant a three sisters garden each native culture that grew the three sisters had a unique planting system. There is a good informative book titled native american gardening written by michael j.

When planted together the three sisters work together to help one another thrive and survive. In this garden design a heap of soil is built firstly maize seeds are sown. They were either planted in mounds along the northern border of the garden or planted in the center of the corn circle mound with the three sisters. The beans the giving sister pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.

When you plant a three sisters garden you help to bring an ancient culture to life. The idea behind the three sisters garden design and intertwining of crops is that these crops support each other in individual growth. Together the sisters provide a balanced diet from a single planting. Caduto and joseph bruchac that describes two different versions of the three sisters garden.

The three sisters way of planting originated with the haudenosaunee tribe. A three sisters garden features cornstalks squash plants and beans grown closely together. By melissa kruse peeples education coordinator for many native american communities three seeds corn beans and squash represent the most important crops. The story goes that beans corn and squash are actually three native american maidens.