Beth,

I think several of us have grown Three Sisters gardens over the years. I do it almost every year.

I've done it several ways:

I've done it using hills or mounds similar to what Renee's Garden suggests.

I've done it by planting four rows of corn, then a row of beans close enough to climb the corn plants in one of those 4 rows and with the winter squash/pumpkin plants planted as a 'border' around the exterior of the entire bed. Think of the corn/bean bed as a photograph and the winter squash as the picture frame around it.

I've done it by planting corn in regular rows with beans (instead of winter squash) only around the exterior and winter squash planted in the pathways I left between the rows of corn.

The most important thing is to let the corn stalks get at least a couple of feet tall before you plant the beans, and three feet tall is even better. Otherwise the beans likely will outgrow the stalks. I prefer using a dent or flint corn to sweet corn because they often are taller and have stronger stalks, or I choose a relatively short/less vigorous pole bean if I am using regular sweet corn because a very vigorous bean variety can bend or break the corn stalks, especially in a really rainy year. I often use Red Stalker for the corn. This year I am using Black Hopi, I think....I've already got the seed and if it isn't Black Hopi then it is Black Aztec or one of those black ones.

No matter how I plant the Three Sisters Garden, I get good results but it does take up a lot of space. This year, we're going to put the Three Sisters garden in a new area (haven't broken the ground yet, but will as soon as the mud dries up) away from the main garden so the winter squash can roam to their heart's content without taking over the entire garden.

Dawn

Beth, below is a link to one of the threads I started on growing corn for meal & grits. There is a bit of info, and some great pictures, of growing beans on corn, etc. The Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin was originally grown on the edges of cornfields, and served to suppress weeds. I believe it. It certainly suppressed the weeds where I grew it this year!

George

Here is a link that might be useful: Corn for Meal & Grits 2

Dawn,

Yes, I thought I remembered you saying you grew a plot like this before. I'm seriously stressing on my lack of space right now, and am picturing this alot bigger now than I was earlier today. So I'm going to speak with one of our renters and see if they'd mind me doing this in their expansive backyard now! So we'll see if I get to or not... LOL! :)
Thanks for telling me the height of the corn, I think the Renee Seeds article said four inches!

George,
Having the Old Timey Cornfield pumpkins was part of the reason I remembered this style of plot! Now you've got me wondering what corn to do... LOL! I was thinking a sweet corn, but now see that's not the best plant to use as a support. Another problem is I don't have a way to grind corn for meal!

Hmmmm.... thinking further about this.

Beth

Beth,

If you want to have a Three Sisters garden but need for the corn to be sweet corn instead of a field, dent or ornamental corn, then all you have to do is switch to a half-runner type of bean or substitute a good bush-type cowpea like Pink Eye Purple Hull. From what I can tell, Pinkeye Purplehull peas with no support seldom get taller than maybe 20-30" tall in my garden, but they'll sneak across the pathway and climb 6' tall tomato cages if they have the chance. Still, the Pinkeye Purplehull peas are not as lush and heavy as many pole beans. Half-runner beans also shouldn't get tall enough to bring down the stalks of most sweet corn varieties.

I have grown sweet corn in my Three Sisters beds but it is harder than it sounds. I only do it because I am stubborn and want to do what I want to do in the way I want to do it. : ) If you grow sweet corn and have beans climbing it and squash vines running through it, you have to be very, very, very careful when you are picking your ripe ears of corn. Often the bean plants will be wrapped around the ears, so you have to remove the ears without breaking the bean vines and you have to place your feet carefully as you harvest the corn (and, later on, the beans) or you'll step on and break your squash vines. In my garden, the huge advantage of the Three Sisters garden used with sweet corn is that the big winter squash vines often keep the raccoons from getting our sweet corn.

Back in the day when the native Americans planted their Three Sisters gardens, they were raising crops to get them through the winter and their corn and beans normally were left on the plant until they dried so there was no issue with harvesting corn in the sweet (milk) stage or beans for use as green snap or shell beans.

About a decade ago, give or take a couple of years, I read an amazing book called "Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden" in which Buffalo Bird Woman described for historians how her Hidatsa tribe and her specific family raised their crops in the 1800s and early 1900s. The book is available at various online booksellers, but it also is posted online and you probably would really enjoy reading it. Buffalo Bird Woman not only described how they raised their crops but also how they preserved them. It is one of my favorite all-time gardening books although it is not, strictly speaking, a how-to book.

I've linked the online version for you.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden

Oh, I've been wanting to read that book! Thanks Dawn! :)

I'm not saying it has to be sweet corn, I was thinking an ornamental one would be the way to go actually. You can do the sweet corn, you're good like that, LOL!

I've got to talk to Whitney when she gets off work, but I'm sure she'll go for having this in her backyard. I'm actually pretty excited about it, from the pumpkins to the beans to the ornamental corn! :)

Beth

George, Thanks for the information about Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkins I just went to Sand Hill Preservation and requested a 2010 catalog.

Jeana