Three Sisters

The Three Sisters are Corn, Beans and Squash, planted together in companion plantings, often with sunflowers too. I heard about Three Sisters first as an anthropology student. This was the traditional style of agriculture that sustained people all over this continent, from the Iroquois Confederacy of nations to the Hopi and Zuni in the American Southwest, all the way to Mexico where corn was first domesticated. The idea of the Three Sisters was planted as a seed in my mind at that time.

When I found out I could get a community garden plot, the seed of the idea sprouted as I looked into local sources of heritage seeds, grown from open-pollinated crops and saved by farmers over the generations. With a sunny community plot, I could finally indulge my fantasies of growing crops that require full sun! I wanted to grow the Three Sisters as an experiment for a few reasons.

Over the centuries through saving the seeds of plants that grew best in local conditions, Aboriginal farmers pushed the limits of their climates and created varieties of corn that could grow further and further north. The Buffalo was a more abundant source of nutrition in the northern plains, but the Sioux nations in North Dakota grew the Three Sisters for many years before the colonists came. One reason for growing heritage varieties of traditional crops was to honour those Hidatsa and Mandan women who fed their communities from the land in this way.

I also loved the idea that many of the nations that grew Three Sisters had a strong role for women in community life. Many of the Northeastern societies were matrilineal and matrilocal. Clan membership and hereditary titles passed through the mother's line, from one man to the son of his sister, and the clan mothers were very powerful in the community. Women grew up and remained in the same areas and tended the same fields their whole lives, with their husbands coming to join their household. It was the farm that anchored the community, through the work of the women. I wanted to be part of this tradition of strong women keeping the community together.

I also wanted to garden in a way that would benefit the environment. Companion planting is one way to allow one plant to help meet the needs of another. With the Three Sisters, the beans add nitrogen to the soil to feed the corn. The corn grows tall, allowing the beans to climb up and reach the sun. And the squash vines grow along the ground, covering the soil with their broad leaves, preventing weeds from growing and shading the roots of both corn and beans from the hot sun of late summer. This combination is the ultimate companion planting for North American gardens. And the plants that grow together as companions are also eaten together - corn, beans, squash and sunflower seeds together make a nutritious meal with complete proteins.

This year I am growing a combination of different heritage varieties that likely would not all have been grown together traditionally, but each sounded fascinating:
Mandan Bride corn - a multicoloured variety used for flour or fall decorations
Bleu Coco beans - a French heirloom that is reputed to taste wonderful as green beans or as dried beans
North Georgia Candy Roaster squash - doesn't that sound delicious?
All are from Heritage Harvest Seeds in Carman.

As it turned out, my Candy Roaster squash had poor germination, so only two of the plants are that variety. All the others are miscellaneous plants from the nursery. I also found that the Blue Coco beans were not sufficient for 16 hills, so I added some Helda pole beans from Lindbergs.

The first shot shows the corn and bean hills in late June when they were just getting established. It was hard to imagine they could possibly need as much space as they had. The second shot shows the effects of several weeks of sun and rain in equal measure. Interwoven together are corn stalks, bean flowers, tendrils of squash and some volunteer dill courtesy of Gauchers who had this plot last year.

What brought this on?

As every gardener knows, you don't get good growth without both heat and water. These clouds above the city speak to both - strong updrafts on a hot day, bringing thunderstorms and heavy downpours. We've had our share of both over the last few weeks, and it shows in the healthy growth at the garden.

More garden blooms

Still more flowers: squash, hot peppers, and coriander in full bloom.

Promise of things to come

A quick tour of the garden this evening, just before the first few drops of rain fell, revealed a surprising number of blooms.

Potatoes, fava beans, raspberries, and a few marigolds brighten the garden scene with their colours and make me hopeful of a tasty harvest.

Patchwork Quilt

Planting season is now done, and we can start to see the evidence of all our hard work. The gardens at 26th and Maryland make a patchwork quilt of different styles of planting, each garden different from the one next to it.

Some plots are closely planted, with short rows of many different vegetables. These shelter a little of everything to keep the fridge full, and not one inch of soil is wasted. Others take a different approach, with widely spaced rows, concentrating on a few favourites. Some are planted in blocks, others in rows running east-west or north-south. A few plots are dedicated to potatoes as these need a large area to grow well.

Flowers have appeared in a few plots, dressing the edges of the plots and brightening the landscape. Some flowers merely add decoration, others are edible (did you know you can eat pansy blossoms?) and still others are there to keep the vegetables company. I'm told that slugs and other bugs are drawn to marigolds and will leave the crops alone if they have some of these aromatic plants to chew.

The raised beds are now complete, one foot high, and four feet by twelve feet long. They are made of interlocking 2 by 4s, so they will be durable. We ran out of labour to fill the beds, so each gardener hauled their own dirt from the piles next to the rows of beds. Some were able to do it before the heavy rains, and had a relatively easy time, but after a week of solid rain, the soil turned into mud and some gardeners had quite a chore to haul the heavy soil.

Now they are all set up and all have seeds, sprouts, or whole plants reaching skywards. The small raised beds are a microcosm of the plots - each is different. Some gardeners trusted to seeds, and have tiny rows of new sprouts emerging. Others put in plants from the green house to get a jump on the season, and some have done a little of both to hedge their bets. Tomato plants in particular vary from tiny little transplants, to large potted plants that already had fruit setting.

Now that the first round of hard work is taken care of, the next task will be weeding - a couple of weeks of heavy rain alternating with hot sun have brought along the wild oats and lambs quarters that want to take advantage of our freshly tilled soil.

Name our Garden

What's our official name? So far we have been operating as "26th and Maryland Garden" based on our location. But we can have an official name for our garden, as Nancy mentioned at our meeting on opening day. If you have a suggestion, you can add a comment or send me an e-mail at my address above. I'll share all the suggestions here and people can pick their favourite.

By the end of the summer we should have an official name to add to our sign.

Tetanus Clinic

Further to my last post, if you do not have your Tetanus shots up to date, there will be a nurse giving boosters at 7th Street Health Access Centre on Thursday, July 10 from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm. It is free of charge.

7th Street Health Access Centre is located at #20 - 7th Street in Brandon, and you can call for more information at: 578-4806.