The Three Sisters and Friends

People ask me what they should try to grow if they have a small garden. My first thought: tomatoes! They're so adaptable to meal plans. My second thought: potatoes! No longer relegated to the garden, they are emerging as horticultural plantings for landscapes, make a very pretty ground cover and provide delicious spuds that can be prepared for the table in a multitude of ways. My third thought: "The Three Sisters", quite possibly responsible for the success of both the early native Americans and the immigrants who came later to live and thrive here in America.

In early times, before recorded history in America, the people who inhabited the land would plant beans, corn and squash together. The three vegetables came to be called "The Three Sisters" and became standard. This planting combination had been a brilliant agricultural plan, ingenious in the way the plants complemented each other. The way it worked, stalks of corn provided a structure for climbing beans. In turn, beans brought nitrogen from the air down into their roots and into the soil where the corn, which has to have nitrogen, could use it. Beans and corn together would provide a great protein source, especially important when meat could not be found. Squash provided the perfect vining ground cover to fight weeds and hold in moisture, proving to be even better because it was edible. Our early Americans valued both its flowers and its fruit.

If you have the room, I would suggest all these vegetables but, especially, garden with the three sisters. They worked in olden days in the garden and will continue working today!