Three Sisters - Judgement Day

Although it's been a lovely warm September day, fall is in the air.  The corn is long finished and the beans have all but stopped producing.  Squash vines are dying while the fruit on them is ripening in the sun.  It's time to take a good hard look at how the Three Sisters garden worked out this year and to decide on what changes should take place if I decide to repeat the experiment next year.

Today I took apart one of the beds, all except for a butternut squash which was still growing in the bed.  I was careful not to uproot the cornstalks around it; I just cut them down.  Everything else, irrigation line included, has been removed from that particular bed.  Two very large wheelbarrow loads were removed to one side of the compost bin.

I think that overall, the experiment was successful.  There are definitely things which need tweaking, however.

The corn component worked out very well.  With the strength of the bean vines, it withstood the wind and wasn't blown over as corn has been every year in my garden.  We certainly enjoyed feasts of fresh corn from our garden!

Beans set aside for seed ripening in the sun

The beans were immensely successful - in fact much too successful.  They broke down the cornstalks, luckily after the corn had been mostly harvested.  We had enormous harvests of beans and were very pleased with the quality.  When I took apart one of the beds, however,  I discovered masses of beans which had been hidden in the jungle.

Spaghetti squash

The squash component has been the least successful.  Those plants which were placed directly in the beds with the corn and beans were definitely over-shadowed and didn't produce much.  The spaghetti squash which was planted in the bed between the two corn/bean/squash beds fared much better and there are lots of squashes ripening from this one plant.

Will I do another Three Sisters garden next year?  I think so.  We have plans to replace the old wooden beds with something more durable.  What will I do differently next year?

As I did this last spring, I'll start the corn in the potting shed and plant it out when the night temperatures are about 10 C.

When the corn is about 6" tall, I'll plant the beans outside protected by water bottle collars so that the timing is better and the corn has a chance to make some height before the beans start scrambling up the stalks.  And instead of the 16 plants I grew this year, it'll be more like 8.  I think I might grow more bean plants separately so I can keep better control over the production.

The squash is a puzzle, though.  I'm not sure how I can grow good squash plants in my restricted raised bed situation and next year it might be a Two Sisters garden!  The squash might be planted in one of the new 4x4 beds so that I can ensure that it gets the proper care.

And on a squash note, the cantaloupe is starting to ripen in one side of the compost bin.  I got 6 cantaloupes from the 2 plants.  And here, as well, I have plans to grow cantaloupe again next year, but with changes.  I'll grow the plants in the potting shed for longer and I'll put a water bottle collar in place while they're still tiny.  The wood bugs had quite a feast on the young stems before I protected them this year.  I'm sure it set them back more than a bit.

All in all, the Three Sisters garden was successful.  With minor changes, I'm sure it'll be even more successful next year.