Three Sisters

Tina's Weekly garden update

4 rows of 6 mounds.

The past weeks have been relatively easy as far as my plot goes. Steve and I made a deal in which he would build my three sisters mounds for me, and in exchange I would plant his corn for him. That meant no raking huge amounts of dirt for me, and help for Steve to meet his goals. Hooray for collaboration!

I have always been interested in Native American history, and, in choosing to dedicate my plot to the three sisters method, I hope to develop the same understanding in regard to companion planting. The traditional three sisters are corn, beans, and squash. While I stayed true to the original family, I put my own spin on things by choosing different varieties.


I planted corn, the oldest sister in my plot the first week of June. After Steve constructed the 24 separate mounds, 5 ft in diameter and about 10 inches high, I took over (smart, huh?). I needed to plant 6 corn plants approx. 10 in. apart, in the center of each mound, in a circle about 2 ft in diameter. To accomplish this I made a kind of home-made compass out of a bent nail and a piece of string 12 in long. It doesn't have to be a bent nail, I just happened to find one when I was looking around for something pointy to mark my circle. 

Steve, bless his heart, had already marked the center of each mound with a little red construction flag. I found a discarded flag, and tied my 12 in piece of string to it. Then as I went from one mound to the next,  I placed my flag in the center,  in the same hole as the original. Using my string compass I was able to determine where to plant the seed. I chose Hooker's Sweet Indian as my corn variety, and planted 2-3 seeds in ea hole. I determined my spacing by imagining a clock face in the dirt, and planted my seeds at 12, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10o'clock respectively. I thought I was pretty smart! 

Lil' baby corn!

Corn's role in the three sisters relationship is that of the older sister. As she grows, she will provide strength, shade, and stability to her younger siblings, and they, in return, will support her in her journey to maturity. The middle sister, beans, will be planted next, when the corn is about 10 inches tall. As the beans grow, they will use the corn as a trellis. In return, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil, something both of her sisters benefit from. Baby sister squash comes next, and as she stays low to the ground and spreads her broad leaves she will both shade the roots of her sisters on hot summer days, and help keep water from evaporating before it reaches the roots. Companion planting at its best.

The only thing I did not enjoy about the garden was all the crawling around on the ground, but even that was made a little more bearable by virtue of my and my husbands' combined( there's that collaboration again!)ingenuity. I already had my trusty blue kneeling pad, and it worked great. The problem was hoisting my large hiney up off the ground when it came time to move to the other side of the mound, and then again to move to the next mound...it got old (translation:painful) real quick. My first concession was to not move to the other side of the mound, just reach across with one leg stuck straight out behind me for balance, like some kind of yoga move. Then I used a roll of thick black foam Steve re-appropriated from God knows where to crawl from one mound to the next on my hands & knees. 

Here was my final system: kneel on the blue pad, place flag in hole, use compass to mark & plant the near side, do the same for the other side using the yoga/plank maneuver, grab the black foam and fling it around until it lays flat in the walkway between the mounds, hop onto the foam while still on my knees, pick up my blue pad and carry it with me as I crawl to the next mound, place the blue pad on the ground in front of the new mound, hop (still on my knees, remember?) from the black foam onto the blue pad, repeat....24 times. 

I am proud of myself. Proud that I didn't give up, and that I didn't let a little discomfort get in the way of keeping my commitment to building a better life for myself and the people I love. Proud of my own ingenuity and willingness to find a way, to make perfectly serviceable tools out of what was lying around. And now I wait....to do it all 2 more times......


-Tina