Now that I have space and chickens, I thought I might try growing the traditional North American trio of maize, beans and squash. A handy website Renee’s Garden outlines a planting scheme for a ten foot square patch, so I doubled that to 6 m x 3 m rectangle. The bed is up by the chicken coop, on a bit of a slope and well drained, so rather than using mounds I have made level patches with some cut and fill.
The three sisters legend says that maize, beans and squash are inseparable sisters, and the practical basis of the system is that the maize provides beanpoles, the beans provide nitrogen, and the squash provide a weed suppressing ground cover. The planting scheme involves alternating squares of corn and squash, with beans planted in among the corn. In the picture above you can see the maize, doing surprisingly well after our long dry spell. Now that the maize is about 10 cm high (and we have some rain forecast) I have put in 4 bean seeds per square, and once it has rained I will put in cucurbit seedlings that I have been raising in the greenhouse.
The maize is Aztec Red, which looks great but is a grain type that you can’t eat like sweetcorn. Here in Australia we don’t have a maize culture at all that I have seen, so it will be new territory for me. I will probably try making hominy with them but they could well end up as chicken food.
The beans are two types; two rows of climbing purple beans, and the centre row is some flat green climbing beans that Mum gave me.
The cucurbits (squash family) will be more varied. I don’t think it matters what type they are, and I have watermelon, pumpkin, rockmelon, cucumber and zucchini, so I will have to decide which go here and which go nearer to the house.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this american system works here. It’s certainly a change from our standard single variety beds.