Corn seedlings!

Planted the first squash in the 'Three Sisters' bed - a couple of starts for butternut that Amaya got as a present on her 6th birthday.

The corn seedlings have already broken through! :)

I double planted each location with Quickie Hybrid (Sugar Enhanced - 64 days); I'll thin back to just a single corn plant per position once there's a little more growth.

The Three Sisters Project - Part I: Corn

The three sisters - Corn, squash, and pole beans is an *old* method.


If this works out as it should, this new raised bed should supply an ample amount of corn, squash, and beans hereafter.... (from the Renee's Garden link above)


"Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the overall fertility of the plot by providing nitrogen to the following years corn. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less vulnerable to blowing over in the wind. Shallow-rooted squash vines become a living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating, thereby improving the overall crops chances of survival in dry years. Spiny squash plants also help discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans. The large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the mound at the end of the season, to build up the organic matter in the soil and improve its structure."

Having the "spiny squash plants" protecting the corn is of particular interest, since we have raccoons in the area. I don't want to go through this exercise just to feed a bunch of city coons.

I'm curious about the premise that you can plow in all the crop residue. Corn stalks, corn husks, squash leaves... combined and composted with the nitrogen that the pole beans capture in their root system, means that you can continually plant the same crops in the same plot? (more research needed.)

My official seed planters have planted the corn.....

When the corn gets to 4 inches the pole beans will be planted in the mounds with the corn, and the squash will go in the negative space between the the mounds.

"Native Americans kept this system in practice for centuries without the modern conceptual vocabulary we use today, i.e. soil nitrogen, vitamins, etc. They often look for signs in their environment that indicate the right soil temperature and weather for planting corn, i.e. when the Canada geese return or the dogwood leaves reach the size of a squirrels ear."

We planted when the lilacs and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom.

Corn - a new challenge

Corn in Cascadia. Is it doable? We'll find out.

I discovered the 'three sisters' concept last year. (More info: gardenweb.com and Renee's Garden I'm determined to make it happen. Squash and beans are no problem... they're easy. Corn on the other hand, is more complicated.

First off, there's planting the corn. Corn can't just be dropped into any bed. Corn roots go deep (up to 4 ft!). "Over the course of a growing season, about 40% of the water used by corn will come from the first foot of soil, 30% from the second foot and 20% from the third foot. Less than 10 percent will be obtained from the soil below 3 feet." We diligently till and amend the soil in all our beds, but not 4 feet down.

To solve this problem, I've decided to build a new raised bed. Raised beds offer several advantages. Even with building a raised bed and importing soil from the nursery, I still have to dig down to break up and amend the existing soil - but at least I'm not digging down as far. (I'm aiming for 18-24 inches down and a 24" high raised bed). The earth under where I'm putting this bed has had excavators, my F-150 on top of it... and it's even been worked over with a compactor. Breaking it up took some work. Another benefit of raised bed gardening is that the temperature of the soil comes up faster in the spring. I expect that this raised bed will prove useful for other warm weather crops in future rotations.

A change from other crops we've grown is that corn has both female and male flowers on the same plant. (Primer) Normally the wind would provide what's needed for pollination to occur - but to ensure a strong crop I'll likely have to manually pollinate the corn.

To top it all off... lots of things beside humans like to eat corn. We've got raccoons, crows, and squirrels in abundance and they all like corn.

A worthy challenge... but worth it for the prize of fresh, sweet corn.