Me & the girls went out to a museum/nature area today. The museum was devoted to the relationship between the fur traders & native americans during the 1700's in our area.
Anyway, they had an area about gardening! My girls noticed a sign about 3 Sisters Garden. Corn, squash and beans. How they help each other in the garden - the beans crawl up the corn, the squash covers the area and keeps weeds out - there was more but that's the gist of it.
I love this idea. I had to study Native Americans for a Native American Lit. class in college and it was amazing how they were so effecient. I haven't tried it but it's on my garden to do list! (Along with about a million other things!)
Deb, Isnt that great.....? One of the farmgirls here brought that to our local chapter a couple of weeks ago... Such a clever idea... Are you gonna try it?
There is another term, Companion gardening. It is endless and goes by the same priciples. Like peas (or sweet peas) on sunflowers with pumpkins below or mixing any giant pole plant with a climber and adding a ground cover below.
This works great if you want to make a "garden fort" or we call it the "fairy hideway".
Just plant corn or sunflowers in a circle large enough for your kids to be in. Then add beans and on the outside of the cirlce plant your favorite squash (my kids love the baby pumpkins because they are ready to pick by july and they play with them). We also have taken prunings from our trees and made "TeePee" Trallises with them and it has turned out really cool.
I would post a pic of them but I haven't figured that part out yet.
Thanks Deb for bringing up such a great way to vertical garden.
Heide
Nude Food Farm ~Grown so good, Dressing is Optional.
Deb, Chicago Botanic Garden did the "3 Sisters" method last year at the Reggenstein Vegetable and Orchard gardens. I thought it made a lot of sense and plan to do it this spring in my vegetable garden.
By the way, Isle a la Cache is about 10 minutes from my house!
A 3 sisters garden
Posted - Mar 27 2009 : 4:03:44 PM
