Falling in love with Three Sisters

The Three Sisters, corn, bean and squash, grown together by the native Americans, have a mythical aura that exerts a pull on many a homesteader or experimental farmer.  I too, heard the siren of the Three Sisters, and was seduced.  In the past two years, we have planted a Three Sisters plot.  It is a homage to the original farming practice of this place.  But it’s also an experiment in the possibility of growing more and more nutritious food with simple tools, on less land, and little enough labor to make economic sense. 

---

​The Three Sisters were grown by the native peoples from Central America, to the Southwest, and up through the Northeast into Canada.  At the time when the Europeans arrived here, the Three Sisters compared favorably to European farming -– they produced more food per acre than the rotation of monocrop fields common in European agriculture; the mix of crops was nutritionally superior to what the Europeans brought; and the no-till management was able to maintain soil fertility without fallowing over longer periods than the European practice of plowing.  Nonetheless, it was the Three Sisters that disappeared.    That was unfortunate, but I don’t think it is useful to bash the old folks over it.  Let’s acknowledge, forgive our ancestors if we feel the need to, and move on to see what can be learned.
 
Having studied the Three Sisters in books and articles, I planned to try a plot with 100 mounds, and to include our animals in it.   Our plot would be on the “common” of our little Big Foot Food Forest “village” - the open area between the big house, the little garden house, the straw bale studio, the two hoop barns and the solar panels.  The use of animals is my innovation; the native Americans did not have sheep or chickens, but we do, and we like to put them to work.  Otherwise, our plan pretty much follows the books.

​In April 2023, we grazed ten ewes with lambs for 25 days on the common.  Very idyllic!  They ate hay, nibbled on anything that emerged and deposited their manure with more than enough NPK and other nutrients for the Three Sisters.  When the sheep moved on to bigger pasture, we made the 100 mounds on 48” spacing on a plot about 1200 SF.  Mid-May, we planted heritage flint corn, waited for it to emerge and grow; then planted Scarlet Runner and Cherokee Trail of Tear beans and Butternut squash seeds and waited for the Three Sister magic to happen…. ​

---

The beginning was hard.  We lost a lot of corn due to late frost and later some to high winds, which was disappointing.  But things got better.  On the remaining mounds, we had amazing tall columns of corn and Scarlet Runner beans with gorgeous flowers twining around them.  We had zero squash, and around the corn and beans, weeds grew profusely.   The weeds or loss of squash didn’t bother me; I was so enthralled by the grace of the corn plants with their big, flowing leaves, by the bean flowers, and by the hummingbirds that came.  I had never seen food grown so beautifully.  I fell in love with it. 
 
Sadly, some little rats fell in love with it too and in August we started to see corn ears nibbled clean and some pretty fat little rodents waddling around.  Oddly, I was a bit paralyzed and didn’t intervene – the animals ate all the corn.  So that left only a bean harvest, which was bountiful.  It was fun pulling big handfuls of bean pods off the plants, and later Mark and I shelled all of them while having some tea and conversation, quite congenial.   We got about 25 lbs. once shelled.   For a first season, I was pretty happy.

Year two, in Spring of 2024, instead of the sheep, we let our 100 chickens into the village common for a month.  They too, ate early weeds and deposited enough NPK equivalent to fertilize the Three Sisters – such handy little helpers!  I made some other changes to try to improve on the year before: we planted the corn a little later; and we planted squash seedlings instead of seeds, hoping they might get ahead of the weeds.

​No frost loss this year, but we lost about half of the corn to high winds again.  Perhaps we’ll plant a wind break next year?   Overall though, the remaining corn grew well.  The beans were a little slower than the year before.  The squash grew out over the whole plot and produced some fruits, but eventually was totally overwhelmed by weeds - again.  Ok, next year, we’ll do some selective weeding!   The beauty of the plot was stunning – I just love this way of growing food!   

---

​ Like the year before, once the corn was ripe, something started to eat it.  This time, I intervened, although we still lost about half of the corn.  Next year, I’ll keep a better eye out for the scavengers!  We dried the harvested corn on our deck in the hot August sun for a couple of weeks and then shucked it.  It had such pretty colors – red and blue!   Our bounty was 23 pounds of dried corn seeds.  Hooray!   No animals came to eat the beans, so we were able to let them dry in the field and harvest them in October.  They gave us 24 pounds.  I think we’re getting better!   We also did extricate a few squash from the field but just one single fruit dried well to keep. 
 
I was a little frustrated by the loss of squash this year, and by all the weeds.  Next year, we’ll manage the weeds better for sure!  After the harvest, we let the sheep back into the plot to clean up. They had a blast!  They ate everything (except the corn stalks) – all the weeds, plus the dry corn leaves, and bean vines.  One of the ewes, Palm, invented the method of standing on her two hind legs against the tall corn stalks to bend them down for everyone to get at those leaves and vines.  So clever!  Who knew? 
 
In short, growing the Three Sisters is fun, it is beautiful, you get good food, I love it.  I need to get better at it! 