Companion Planting: The Three Sisters

The classic example of happy companion plants is the legendary "three sisters"—corn, pole beans, and either pumpkins or squash. This trio is one of the easiest and most satisfying to grow.

Tips for growing the three sisters:

To try them in your garden, in spring, prepare the soil by adding fish scraps or wood ash to increase fertility, if desired.
When the danger of frost has passed, plant six kernels of corn an inch deep and about ten inches apart in a circle about 2 feet in diameter.
As the corn grows, mound up the soil around the base of the stalks until a hill about a foot high and 3 feet wide is formed.
When the corn is about 5 inches tall, plant four bean seeds, evenly spaced, around each stalk. About a week later, plant six squash seeds, evenly spaced, around the perimeter of the mound.
Each of the sisters contributes something to the planting. Together, the sisters provide a balanced diet from a single planting.

As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans needed support.
The beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.
As the beans grow through the tangle of squash vines and wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight, they hold the sisters close together.
The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds.
The prickly squash leaves also keep away raccoons, which don't like to step on them.

By the time European settlers arrived in America in the early 1600s, the Iroquois had been growing the "three sisters" for over three centuries. The vegetable trio sustained the Native Americans both physically and spiritually. In legend, the plants were a gift from the gods, always to be grown together, eaten together, and celebrated together.