Companion planting what the Iroquois valued as the sustainers of life: beans, corn, and squash. Watch the video and learn how to plant them in a raised bed. The tools I use are from Radius Garden, click the link to get your own!
http://cli.gs/RGToolBundle
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This will be super helpful when I start my garden this month! I also found this cool chart that shows all the different combinations for veggies: http://www.saferbrand.com/blog/buddy-companion-planting-vegetables/
TFS!! Great video!!
These ideas are perfect! The techniques you just shown us is practically one of the most effective ways on how to properly plant vegetables in a raised garden. Companion planting is really a beneficial gardening works.
So true. The advice about the soil isn't so great. Like nature does in forests, it is better to leave the soil alone and just add amendments to the top and maybe wood chips and then plant.
Can you substitute the squash with watermelon and have the same effect?
I am doing a couple of three sister projects here in Toronto
still native Americans "Squanto" etc were not the first to come up with this complex protein combination of growing, it definitely originated in the Mayan culture, being much older than native Americans.
i keep experimenting with companion planting every year with flowers and herbs around vegetables! always shocked by what works and doesn't! i learned this three sisters from an anthropology class emphasized on MAYAN agriculture, Mayans were the first known to start horticulture and agriculture. i will be doing this today or tomorrow in my urban garden.
Right now I've got brassicas and lettuce in shallow trenches. Despite living in the second rainiest city in america I find my plants do best in such trenches which collect the water. I find that despite being able to depend on a weekly downpour they still want more water. I don't get it. I do often end up with a thin layer of clay washing on top of my good soil. Does it block the water?
Want to do full three sisters this time but turning trenches into mounds means more soil cost.
last year I did squash in raised mounds and threw a couple seeds on flat ground just to see how it worked out. The flat ground worked better? Extremely wet environment with the natural soil being almost pure red clay. I put store soil in and at first it worked wonderfully but I think I didn't dig deep enough and eventually got root rot. This time I've transplanted good soil at least a foot deep. We'll see how it goes, but why did the flat ground work better last time?
Can you plant sweet corn or does it have to be the flint or flour corn?
Worms do not get rid of viruses or fungus. You can do it the lazy way and leave that stuff there before tilling it in, but I would pull them all out and compost them fully before adding it back to the soil. Composting causes the temperature to rise high enough that the stuff thats bad for the garden will all die.
worms would take care of the viral/fungal disease, if there's a healthy amount of them in the soil. no-dig allows planting straight into mulch which includes leaves. if its proven successful (unless its very, very compact soil), then should be fine, no?
Rabbit poop
nature is always in balance.
Turning the leaves and old vines and stuff into the soil is not a good idea. True, it will eventually add nutrients to the soil but until it fully composts it will rob nutrients from the soil. Also it contributes to virus and fungal disease as well as allows the eggs from last years pests to stay and eat this years crop as well.
Sorry-couldn't find the answer in the comments…how far apart are the 1 ft hillings from the others?
start the corn first in the middle of a mound of compost and dirt… let it go a couple weeks and then finally the beans and then sqash around the outside perimeter…. if planted all at the same time.. ur beans will gang bang ur corn lol…..
she is gorgeous 🙂
Can you use peas instead of beans? I mean, I know they'll grow the same way, but do peas fix nitrogen like beans do?