Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Photolog 4/28/2009: 3 Sisters Update

The last post was quite lengthy, and I imagine that most people (myself included) simply scrolled down the blog while looking at the pictures. If you read the whole thing (God bless you) then you have too much free time. So here is what we all want to see, mostly pictures! Abbey and I have been doing lot's of landscaping in the backyard, so things may look a little different...

With all the rain everything is very green and growing like crazy! My Three Sisters garden is booming. This companion-planting technique was used by the Native Americans to grow all kinds of plants (mostly corn, beans, and squash). To plant a Three Sisters garden you need to plant a "square" of corn. When the corn is about 8 inches tall, plant pole-beans between each corn stalk. When the first of the pole-beans sprout plant squash around the outside or wherever there's a sunny spot. The corn will continue to grow and will support the pole-beans, the pole beans will grow nitrogen-trapping bacteria along their roots, which is like a living fertilizer, and the squash will creep around low looking for light and will crowd out any weeds. It works! You can also bury some fish real deep in the garden before planting if you want to really feel like a Native American (this acts as a source of fertilizer).




The Three Sisters Corn, Beans (the triangular-flat leaves) and Squash (lower middle-right)


Carrots (left) and Onions (right)


Tomatoes


Eggplant


Cucumbers with a squash in between


Garlic sacpes. These will taste great when I sauté them in butter!


Bailey by the Three Sisters garden. She has also been growing exponentially! Can you tell which end of the garden I buried the fish at? I didn't think it would make that big a difference...

1 comment:

JTR said...

That is really cool...esp about the fish...lol. I am doing this with my girls this year for the first time and your pics realy helped - thanks for sharing!