(Can you see Ivy’s cameo appearance in this picture?)

I asked Damian what I should blog about today and he said “copcooorn!” (popcorn) “beeees! beeees!” (bees or beans, not sure which he meant) and “Pink!” (what he calls our echinacea.) You know what that means? That means we are going to throw a little “squish” (squash) and a few sunflowers (which is just say Woah! to) into a post and update you on his Three Sister’s Garden. But to get the pink out of the way first:

These are the pink ‘Double Delight” coneflowers (Echinacea) my grandma sent me this spring from Spring Hill Nursery. I adore them, Damian adores them (when he runs past them they sway around on their long stems making he laugh) and the beeeeees adore them. I can’t ask for any more then that.

Onto those three sisters…

(Can you see the beans climbing around in there with the corn? And the pumpkin vines crawling around in there? Not a weed in sight with these companions in a garden!)

I have mentioned this in passing in other posts, but a Three Sisters garden is a Native American (possibly originally Iroquois) style of planting corn, beans, squash and occasionally sunflowers. The idea behind these plants going together is that the beans will use the corn to climb and in return once they die they will release the nitrogen fixed by their roots into the soil restoring what the corn took. The squash will act as a living mulch to both conserve moisture and shade out weeds. The sunflowers control pests like aphids and they also have those huge glorious pollinator (and toddler) attracting flowers. So in other words, they can help boost yields.

In Damian’s three sisters garden we are growing Strawberry Popcorn, Titan Sunflowers, Sugar Pie Pumpkins, Hidatsa Shield Beans and Good Mother Stallard Beans (both dry shell varieties.) This way most of the bed can dry out come autumn and it can all be harvested at about the same time. Did you know that beans and corn make a complete protein when eaten together? Throw some squash in and you get a delicious succotash! A hearty winter one pot meal. Granted we are growing popcorn but we will have local corn in our freezer in few weeks.

There is a method to the madness in this 4×4 foot bed beyond just throwing the companion plants in together. You begin with several flat-topped mounds, each being about about six inches tall and 18 inches wide in roughly a circular shape. They are spaced about eight inches apart give or take a few inches. I have found many different numbers for the height, width and distance between these mounds, so I kind of made up my own figures taking into account the size of the bed. You basically want to make sure everything has room to grow but it dense enough to not allow weeds a place to gain foothold. So far my method is working.

Corn and sunflowers are planted first. Several corn kernals are clustered together (an inch or two apart) in the center of each mound. The sunflowers were placed around the perimeter of the garden (it should be noted that Damian planted the sunflowers by himself, I didn’t know he had until they germinated.) Once the corn is four to six inches tall, beans are planted in a circle around the base of the corn cluster. Lots of beans. Pole beans love a party, crowd them in (I planted about four per corn stalk if you need a figure.) Resist the urge to plant your beans before you corn is the right height though! Resist or your beans will strange your corn! The squash is planted at the same time as the beans too. Some sources say to alternate beans and squash in the circle, others say to plant one or two squash between each mound, I chose the latter and it seems to be working well.

I have fertilized twice since planting. First when I planted the corn and this week (when these photos were taken) again with the same balanced organic fertilizer except I made it into a tea and used it on all the mounds (the water runs off the mounds to the squash so I didn’t add any specifically to them.)

We still have the rest of the season to go (everything still needs to set fruit) but so far I am really pleased with this method of planting. It looks rather like a tangled mess but I kind of like that about it. It is an easy way to fit three normally space intensive crops into a relatively small area and to reduce the amount you have to both weed and water. I will probably need to hand pollinate the corn but with this small of an area it shouldn’t be too difficult.

Have you grown a three sisters garden before? Did you use a different method? How did it turn out?

We planted lots of sugar pie pumpkins this Spring but one of the vines ended up under the Elm tree. It made just one itty bitty pumpkin. Mommy gave it to me since she said it is a bit too small to make a pie out of, I love it!

Maybe a pumpkin pie cupcake just for me Mommy?

Have you heard Into the Night by Santana and Chad Kroeger? Sexy Rwar!

Anyhow, soup…

Golden Squash Soup
servings 4

Ingredients:

• 1 large butternut squash, peeled and diced
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tsp curry powder
• 2 3/4 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• 6 oz can coconut milk
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Peel and cut up squash in a 1/2″ dice.
2. Heat 2 tbs broth in a medium soup pot and saute the onions until tender. Add garlic and ginger and saute for another minute. Stir in turmeric and curry powder. Mix well.
3. Pour in remaining broth and add the squash. Turn heat to high and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer for about 10 minutes (or until the squash is tender.)
4. Pour the soup mixture into a blender and add coconut milk. Blend until smooth. Return mixture to the soup pot and add cilantro, salt and pepper. Reheat and serve hot.