Although the traditional three sisters method of growing beans, corn, and squash together worked miserably in my garden last year, I decided to modify it and give the method another shot.  The concept is sound --- the problem was that my vegetable varieties weren't right.  The squash was too vigorous for my sweet corn and bush beans and ended up overwhelming the entire garden plot.

This time around, I'm instead growing cucumbers amid my beans.  Since cucumbers are much less vigorous than squash, they haven't taken over the bush beans.  They did try to run off the sides of the beds, though, so I gave them some teepee trellises to climb.

The nitrogen from the bean roots seems to be doing its job well.  The cucumbers I planted amid the beans are much larger and greener than the ones I planted earlier this summer on their own.  And the beans don't seem to mind the little bit of competition the cucumbers give.  Success!

Shame-faced plug: The new Avian Aqua Miser website is chock full of information about chicken waterers.

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

Or explore more posts by date or by subject.

About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.

Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.