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by Mistletoe
637 days ago
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In my experience it doesn't beat doing row monocrops in my backyard. It just turned into a big mess of plants shading each other, competing for nutrients, impossible to weed, etc. Never again. I'm native and I thought I would try it. Now I wonder how much of it is true and how much is romanticizing an idea that is a meme and sounds good. https://growingfruit.org/t/3-sisters-the-original-survival-f... "This story is an exaggeration which has been further glamorized by plant sellers and periodicals that cater to advertisers of natural or organic seeds and other products. In reality the practice was not widespread. The Farmer’s Almanac is rarely a source of factual information." - Richard "Three sisters is a very inefficient way to grow corn. It is not the way many Amerindian tribes grew their corn as shown by the fields of corn grown by the 5 tribes of the Iroquois. It was used by some tribes, but only if they had corn, beans, and squash adapted to the growing method." - Fusion_power Fusion_power usually knows what he is talking about, I recognize his name from Tomatoville where he is one of the best scientific posters and farmers around. |
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I've long assumed that that's what is happening. Also, you can't just throw all three seeds in a hole and call it done, you have to start the corn and then later start the squash and then later start the beans. It's a whole process. It probably works in specific conditions, but in general normal yearly crop rotation to replenish nutrients with things grown in correctly spaced rows and such is likely to work better and be more labor efficient.