I have just been watching a very enjoyable television program called grow your own veg, and they showed a method on there that I have never heard of before,
The three sisters- beds, is apparently adapted from a method once used by some very old native Indian tribes where all the seed planting was done by the women in the tribe.
Using plants that are symbiotic towards each other to create a very successful crop, the three types that are used are- tall variety sweet corn, climbing pole beans, and Squashes of various types and/or courgettes.
The pole beans are planted first to get them established, then the sweet corn plants are put in at the side of the pole beans, a couple of weeks later the squashes are added on the opposite side of the corn plants fairly close to them.
Aparently the pole beans provide their own nitrogen in the root nodules and soil that also serve to nourish the corn and squashes in growth, the corn shoots up to full height eventually , around whos stems the pole beans climb as well, and some types of squashes climb a bit too, the squashes also cover most of the ground with their leaves and runners-giving shade and stop the ground from drying out so much also keeping down the weeds , it was quite a sight to see six foot tall corn with plenty of cobs growing on them nice and fat, with pole beans hanging off the corn stem in bunches most of the way up, and lower down near the base were sizable squashes of several kinds growing in profusion.
all three types of plants totaly complimented each other and helped each other to reach their goal.
I was quite impressed by it all.
