three sisters bed

[sunrays]

Has anyone tried a three sisters bed, ie sweetcorn growing together with runner beans (use corn for support) and squash to shade soil? Old american idea, sounds interesting

Hi Sunrays - have just planted a three sisters bed, no idea how it will turn out but seems like a cool idea.

Hi Jenkeywoo .Does it need a big space? How many of each plants did you use?

Our is a bit crammed in really as we have stuffed every available corner of our garden with plants! We have a little corner probably about 4ft square and in the middle I have planted a pumpkin, then around it (not in a neat circle as sweetcorn prefer groups rather then rows)sweetcorn plants,about 12 plants. I'm then going to put a bean seed in the soil next to each sweetcorn plant this weekend. The sweetcorn plants have to be a few weeks ahead of the beans as they don't grow quite as quick -my sweetcorn is probably about 25cm so far. I have no idea how it will grow! We'll probably put canes in too if the beans get too unruly. I love the idea of planting like that,and letting nature do the work but DH was very sceptical so I'm really hoping the 3 sisters don't let me down!

I tried this once. the sweetcorn and pumpkin were relatively successful, although as usual the pumpkin was a lot of leaf per pumpkin. But I couldn't convince my beans to grow up the sweetcorn at all. Maybe I should have used an american variety and not an English heritage one!

In 4ft square you're going to have to keep an eye on that pumpkin - it is very likely to attempt to escape. But I love a jungle myself.

Did you plant the sweetcorn on mounds of soil? I am thinking of doing this and have read that the corn and beans should be planted on a mound.

I like the sound of that. Do you have a link to any pics?