hole sisters - Permaculture Approach

[Permacltur at aol.com]

There are a number of factors involved, including your other cultural 
practices, the varieties of maize, bean and curcubit, climate including 
particularly sun intensity and potential for moisture competition, etc.   
Generally, however, I have found that it is inadvisable to plant the three 
sisters at the same TIME.  Therefore, they would not go into the same hole.

Generally, I give the heavy feeding maize, which I always regarded as the 
main crop, a head start so that it is somewhere between shin and knee high.   
Given the head start, the vine crops are unlikely to suppress it.   I do 
inteed plant the curcubit and bean in same HILL or ROW, depending on which 
method I use at the time.  With circle gardens a la Mollison, I plant the 
corn at the perimeter of the pit, the squash or pumpkin in the center of the 
pit, and the beans in a concentric circle around the corn.  This accounts for 
the fertilizer and moisture appetites of each species.  The last cultivation 
(where cultivation is used instead of permanent mulch) involves actually 
moving the squashes to one side.  Cultivation is done and on that side and 
the vines are then manually moved to the other side.  After that, it is 
better not to disturb the adventitious roots of the squash (or pumpkin, same 
thing botanically).  Generally these roots form on the underside of a leaf 
axil where the vine touches the soil. Soon after the last cultivation, the 
large leaves of the squash cover the soil and suppress almost all weeds.  
They also deter some larger pests to some extent.  Eg., racoons do not like 
to go under heavy cover where predators may be lurking.   However racoons can 
overcome this fear if maize is the best tasting food available to them.  They 
are easy to catch in live (box) traps such as Havahart as they will go for a 
husked ear in the trap rather than husk their own.  They are good eating and 
you have to grow a lot of vegetables to replace the food value of one racoon. 
 In deed I've used small patches of maize principlally as trap crops for 
coons and possums. 

Selection of the varieties is important, in my opinion.  Most maize varieties 
of normal height are fine.  Ultra early varieties of maize may be too short 
to provide an optimal trellis for the beans.  This is easily rectified by 
adding poles.  The taller beans are unlikely to suppress the maize because it 
is mature before the beans cast much shade.  There are "cornfield" varieties 
of pole beans, e.g. one actually called Old Cornfield.  Invariably these are 
heirloom varieties, including some preserved by one or another Native 
American culture.  The cornfield varieties are more shade tolerant than other 
bean types and have many applications outside the corfield, too.   At the 
moment I am playing with using them on live bamboo partly under oak, for 
example.  Squash or pumpkin varieties should be of the large leaf type such 
as the various forms of Hubbard and most pumpkins.  This enables them to 
gather light in partly shaded circumstances and still produce a full crop.  

Spacing of the whole system mainly depends on moisture.  If you do not have 
high fertility, grow another grain or skip grains.  In humid climates with 
low evaporation potential, such as my native Massachusetts, the form of 
cultuvation is the most important factor for sweet corn spacing.  If 
cultivated by hand, two-foot rows or hills on three foot centers are fine for 
all but the very tallest varieties.  (Where thunderstorms are a frequent 
summer event, shorter varieties may be more suitable anyway.)  In more arid 
areas, wider spacing swale-like rows that collect water may be advantageous.  
 At some point, as you widen rows and use less robust (and therefore water 
hungry) maize varieties, you can use curcubits with smaller leaves which 
include the more drought-tolerant varieties.  Shade tolerance in beans 
becomes less important too.  \

The principal disadvantage of this combination comes where mid-season 
thunderstorms blow over the crop.   In monoculture, it is easy (well maybe I 
should say simple, because it is hard work) to hill up the corn with a hoe 
and prop it back up to keep growing.  (Assuming that the stem has not snapped 
clean off.)  Where you grow entirely under permanent mulch, two people can 
"hill up" the corn with mulch.   Extra mulch is stockpiled for the purpose 
and allowed to partly compost to make it denser.  Adding urine to high carbon 
mulches can facilitate this.  One person holds an armload of stalks upright 
while the other adds baskets of mulch at the base.  Light tamping with the 
back of a garden rake is helpful. It is a fair bit of work, but you can save 
the crop with minimal damage to the squash vines and beans if you are 
careful.  And it builds your soil.  So it is worth it if you have the time 
(and mulch).  

I hope that this has been helpful.  I'm blind copying this post to the early 
registrants of our annual online Permaculture Design Coruse as a supplement 
to Nutrient Cycles: Cropping Systems  in Section II.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since 
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses, 
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and annual correspondence 
courses via email.  Copyright, 1998, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O. Box 52, 
Sparr FL 32192 USA  Internships. YankeePerm at aol.com  

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In a message dated 8/24/99 12:14:54 AM, akivaw at hotmail.com writes:

<<Learning that I've been growing maize, beans, and squash for many years, 
someone asked me about planting, in the same hole, seeds of all three 
"sisters."

I'm not sure I've ever done this, though I do plant them in proximity based 
upon varietal habit.

Have you practiced, or can you report reliably, on this "3-sisters one hole" 
approach?

Many thanks,
Akiva
Ojai, CA
>>