I was watching a recent episode of Victory Garden (I still like that show) where they were at Copia, a public garden & wine exhibition center in Napa, CA, and they showed their "3 sisters" planting and explained how it works.

The beans fix nitrogen for the other plants, the corn provides a way for the beans to climb, and the squash shades the soil and prevents weeds from growing.

Some long-standing traditions stick around just because nobody challenges them, others have staying power because they work really well. I like knowing WHY something is done a certain way; this is one of those traditions that really works.

After watching the show I decided I really wanted to visit Copia, but I just read that it closed this winter, for financial reasons. Even their web site is gone. Too bad about that - it really looked like a great place; now I'm sorry I didn't go when I had the chance.

I started vegetable gardening again last year now that we have more sun and space. I had this brilliant idea that my bush beans would be all picked and done by the time the winter squash started sprawling and of course, I was going to train the squash vines to head in the opposite direction from the beans. I had tomatos planted on the other side of the beans. The beans did fine but I had to push squash vines aside to get to them. then the squash vines started overtaking the tomato plants. We had a great harvest of winter squash (Confection from Johnny's and a few buttercup squash) but this year the squash are going to get their own plot. We stopped growing corn because of racoons and I just buy it from the local farmer.