3 Sisters growing

[Whwoz]

Have heard of this technique, but things seem to be a bit confused here down under. Wondering if people who use the techniques could post information on how to do it thanks.

[brownrexx]

I tried this several years ago because I was intrigued by the history of it. However I did some further reading and the Native Americans who did this were not growing sweet corn like we do. Their corn was 10-12' tall.

My sweet corn was a lot shorter and was overrun by the squash vines. I could not even walk among the corn plants to harvest the squash.

My experience showed that it became a jungle and was not helpful. It was fun but I have plenty of room to spread my plants out so now I keep them separate and they grow better. The Native Americans also had a water shortage and I do not so I really have no advantage to crowd my plants like this.

I think that the Native Americans were also growing their beans for dried beans so they had no need to try to pick them during the growing season.

Makes a big difference on how you intend to use the veggies grown like this.

[Whwoz]

Makes sense, what you say brownrexx thank you. I can access corn that grows tall, but as we grow for green beans not dried it would be easier to separate

[brownrexx]

[mention]Whwoz[/mention] once the corn is full and tall it would be very difficult to get in between the plants to harvest green beans and at the same time you would be stepping on the squash plants.

I think that the 3 sisters is interesting for historical reasons but not so practical for us. They probably just planted everything together and then harvested it all at the same time at the end of the growing season. They used their corn dried too so they were harvesting dry corn, dry beans and winter squash after the vines died.

[Whwoz]

@brownrexx, thank you for the response, sounds like a big pass for me.

[worth1]

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://en ... EWxf5f2GMX

[Whwoz]

Interesting, thanks Worth