Start a New Thanksgiving Tradition with the Three Sisters: Corn, Beans, and Squash. Many of you are already planning your Thanksgiving dinner with relatives and friends. The corn is a trellis for the bean stalks, beans provide nitrogen for the soil, and the squash’s leaves cover the ground and protect from pests.

The Three Sisters are represented by corn, beans, and squash and they’re an important facet of Indigenous culture and foodways. They’re planted in a symbiotic triad where beans are planted at the base of the corn stalks.

The Iroquois believe corn, beans and squash are precious gifts from the Great Spirit, each watched over by one of three sisters spirits, called the De-o-ha-ko, or Our Sustainers.” The planting season is marked by ceremonies to honor them, and a festival commemorates the first harvest of green corn on the cob.

The folate in squash helps protect against birth defects and squash also offers trace minerals such as copper and magnesium. Corn, beans and squash work together nutritionally to offer carbohydrates from corn, protein from beans and healthy vitamins and minerals found in squash.

ants being referred to as the “three sisters” – relates back to Native Americans. According to Iroquois legend these three plants when planted together thrive in the same way three sisters can be found to be inseparable. Iroquois believed that the corn, beans and squash were gifts from the Great Spirit.

The Legend The Aboriginal dream-time legend has it that three sisters, ‘Meehni’, ‘Wimlah’ and ‘Gunnedoo’ lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe. These beautiful young ladies had fallen in love with three brothers from the Nepean tribe, yet tribal law forbade them to marry.

The Three Sisters play an important part in Aboriginal history and, according to legend, were once three beautiful sisters called Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo. Leaving the three sisters to remain as the large rock formations for all eternity. Standing mournfully high above the Jamison Valley, never to be human again.

The Three Sisters method is companion planting at its best, with three plants growing symbiotically to deter weeds and pests, enrich the soil, and support each other. The pole beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.

Native tribes in North America, most notably the Iroquois, utilized the three sisters approach. The three sister plants—corn, beans, and squash—is a trio that provides ecological and nutritional balance. Planting legumes, such as beans, alongside the corn is one way to help minimize nutrient depletion.

A small area is best managed intensively for good yields. Salad crops, other vegetables, and root crops might be your best bets. I think it depends on how much you love corn, and how much you want to avoid the problems of store-bought corn. For me, it’s totally worth it, even being a heavy feeder.

The overall yield of food from the land area is increased, and the crop mix is a better ratio of protein and oil. Sunflower planted after corn harvest used the soil channels from the corn roots allowing it to reach deeper resources.

The strips are likely there because the farmer wanted to harvest the field before the adjustor could get there, this adjustor says. Typically, farmers are asked to leave entire passes across the field so the adjustor can get an idea of conditions in the entire field.

10 Plants to Grow With Corn

• Borage. Borage is a flower that not only attracts beneficial insects, but can deter pest worms from your corn.
• Cucumber. As a vine plant, cucumber spreads out along the ground to provide ground cover for corn, preventing weeds and keeping the soil moist.
• Dill.
• Marigolds.
• Melons.
• Mint.
• Nasturtiums.
• Pole beans.

California produces more than 90 percent of the country’s hybrid sunflower planting seed, which is shipped around the nation and world. The seed is used to grow sunflower seeds for a healthy snack or salad topper, and for seeds that are expressed into sunflower oil, valued for its clean taste and polyunsaturated fat.

You’ll find a few of the negatives of growing sunflowers here. Sunflowers can kill. Of all the issues with sunflowers, perhaps the most interesting and dire is their tendency to repress the growth of other plants. This is because sunflowers are allelopathic – they exude toxins that stop nearby plants from growing.

Mice are especially fond of seeds, so newly planted garden seeds like corn and sunflower seeds are a favorite target of garden mice. Newly emerging grass seed, grains and leafy green vegetables are also appealing to mice.

Seed cost on sunflowers is about $15 per acre and weed control costs should be similar to soybeans. Fertilizer will cost more than soybeans, mainly because some form of nitrogen is needed with sunflowers.

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