Fall prep for spring 3 sisters garden

2023 I started a new project, researching everything I could find on Google Scholar regarding early NE American Native techniques for growing corn etc. Planted the corn and built hills around it as it grew. Planted secondary crops, beans, sunflowers, tobacco, potato, tomato etc. in between the corn rows. Result was quite good in spite of the drought.

One major distinction between traditional techniques and later colonial farmers was the permanent hills. Farmers plowed the hills under each year and rebuilt them, while traditional Native Americans, mostly women, used the same hills year after year, gradually building them up. I decided to try it. So this fall I am working on rebuilding the hills. Hopefully next spring I can plant with very little labor into already fertile, established hills.

It is hard work, but since the crops are all harvested, I can do it little by little now, right up until it's frozen solid. Much easier than panicking in the spring and spending many hours over a few days trying to get the prep done.

What the hills look like now:

Good plan, I need to mulch heavily to suppress winter growth. Mulching also prevents the freezing from stopping soil development under the snow over the winter.  Exposing the unfrozen soil to the sun in the spring gives it a head start on the growing season.

Hans Quistorff wrote:Good plan, I need to mulch heavily to suppress winter growth. Mulching also prevents the freezing from stopping soil development under the snow over the winter.  Exposing the unfrozen soil to the sun in the spring gives it a head start on the growing season.

I like the freezing/thawing cycle. I think it helps develop the soil. One supposed benefit of the hills is that they warm up quickly on sunny days. Hoping to be able to plant a bit earlier this year. We will see how that works out.

We get a solid 'weed' cover every fall and early spring of a small, wiry plant that completely covers the exposed soil. In the spring it grows back early and makes a solid ground cover. It is easy to pare back with a hoe and makes a good mulch, so I like it. I no longer try to eliminate it, since it self-limits seasonally. Grass is the only weed that really causes trouble.

"Stellaria media, chickweed, is an annual flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae. It is native to Eurasia and naturalized throughout the world, where it is a weed of waste ground, farmland and gardens. It is sometimes grown as a salad crop or for poultry consumption. Wikipedia"   Worked very well on our farm vegetable production in the 1950's.  It melts back into the ground with summer heat.  One that worked well on this farm: dead nettle: "Lamium is a genus of about 30 species of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae, of which it is the type genus. They are all herbaceous plants native to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, but several have become very successful weeds of crop fields and are now widely naturalised across much of the temperate world. Wikipedia"  It also dies back to a thin mulch with summer heat.  But i now have invasive cleavers "Galium aparine, with common names including cleavers, clivers, catchweed "robin-run-the-hedge", and sticky willy among others, is an annual, herbaceous plant of the family Rubiaceae. Wikipedia"   So named because the vines, leaves and seeds have velcroid hooks that cling to anything passing by.  They climb up and bind around anything tall and are thus very difficult to remove though they are not strong rooted.  

Thom, Is the purpose of hilling corn to provide more support because it's shallow rooted?
I'm following this thread as we are planning something similar with our friend's corn, beans, and squash...wishing we had paid more attention to his ways.....I think they were similar to what you describe.

When you make the hills ahead of time do you plant the seed deep in the hill?

Thanks!

Thom,

I've seen many different variations of the "sisters" theme, but judging by the success you had this year, you're doing far better than most accounts I've heard of.  

For my own curiosity, how many corn seeds are you planting per hill, and how deep below the surface?  Thanks.

Cy Cobb wrote:Thom,

I've seen many different variations of the "sisters" theme, but judging by the success you had this year, you're doing far better than most accounts I've heard of.  

For my own curiosity, how many corn seeds are you planting per hill, and how deep below the surface?  Thanks.

I have been growing this corn since 1997, so getting it to grow is not a problem. And have been gradually moving towards multicropping for a few years. This year decided to take the plunge and see how it would go. It turned out to be pretty easy, though with the drought I had to carry water.

I planted 2 or 3 seeds per hill, an inch to 2 inches deep. No exact measure, I made a digging stick and just stabbed it into the dirt and tossed in a seed, then stepped on the spot to get soil-seed contact. No tillage or plowing of any sort. Next spring I plan to plant more like 5 or more seeds per hill, because 2 is not enough, between animals and birds and cutworms. I had to replant a lot of hills. Also, if too many seeds grow, I can rogue out any that don't look healthy, and end up with about 3 plants per hill goal.

Once the sprouts were a few inches tall I started building up hills around them, and gradually made the hills bigger as the stalks grew, up to a max of about a foot tall. That really helped hold moisture. Planted lots of beans and squash, tomatoes and potatoes, cantaloupes, sunflowers, tobacco between the hills. It worked pretty well.

Judith Browning wrote:Thom, Is the purpose of hilling corn to provide more support because it's shallow rooted?
I'm following this thread as we are planning something similar with our friend's corn, beans, and squash...wishing we had paid more attention to his ways.....I think they were similar to what you describe.

When you make the hills ahead of time do you plant the seed deep in the hill?

Thanks!

No, not just support. On hard dirt, corn can be shallow rooted, but in decent ground it is quite deep-rooted. Some of my garden is very hard clay, so the corn there has some problems, but really I have not had much problem with lodging. After a big windstorm sometimes the corn will lie down, but it usually rights itself without help.

One advantage of the hills is that it is easy to concentrate organic matter, compost, good topsoil right where it is needed most, at the base of the corn plant. You don't have to improve the whole garden all at once, only a small spot right where it is needed most. Most of us don't have enough compost for a big garden, and we 'waste' a lot of it where it isn't doing much immediate good. Corn requires really good soil to produce well, but other crops don't. In between the hills of corn, I can plant crops that do not need high fertility. Tomatoes do better in moderate fertility soils. Squash will run to all vines if there is too much nitrogen. Potatoes don't seem to need much nitrogen either, I have grown them very successfully in poor clay soils. Beans are actually harmed by the level of nitrogen required for max production of corn. So I plant the corn in the hills, and everything else goes in between the hills.

This year I planted in flat ground and built the hills up as the corn grew. In the coming year I will already have the hills made, and will plant into the hills. Again, as the corn grows I will gradually scrape more dirt against the stalks. This slowly over the years results in larger hills. Apparently this is how the Indian ladies did it, and I am imitating them.

This saves a LOT of labor, since the 'tilling' is done gradually over the whole growing season, not in a burst in the spring. I am really looking forward to seeing how it works out in the second, and hopefully ongoing years.

Hans Quistorff wrote:"Stellaria media, chickweed, is an annual flowering plant in the family Caryophyllaceae.  

Thank you! I did not know the name of this plant. I googled it, and the pics look exactly like what grows in the fall and spring. It makes a thick mat completely covering the ground. I believe it is very useful.

July 6th 2023

Somebody check my math.

My garden is 3% of an acre. I harvested about 100 pounds of corn (97lbs into the bin, pitched about a dozen ears that got moldy or too many weevils). 100 lbs is 1.8 bushels, assuming corn is 56lbs/bushel.

So to get bushels/acre, 1.8 divided by .03 = 60 bushels/acre.

Or, 100 divided by .03 = 3333.33 pounds/acre. Divided by 56lbs/bushel = 59.5 bushels/acre.
Or, 57.7 bushels/acre assuming 97 lbs after subtracting post harvest losses (moldy corn thrown out).

In kilos/hectare, (for the fans of Napoleon Bonaparte), 3736.17 K/Ha.

Pretty darned happy with that (assuming you guys check my math).

This was not a pure, organic crop. No insecticides, have never used them on my corn. Weed control was by hand, except I did spray Canada thistles near the garden, and some clumps of grass. But I did use commercial N/P/K fertilizer and gypsum. Plan for next spring is to plant without additional fertilizer. But I will spray those thistles!

In terms of food value, figure corn at 1500 calories/lb. 100lbs is 150,000 calories. So if for some reason you ate corn and only corn, that's 75 days worth of calories, on a 2000/calorie/day diet.

Have been reading a LOT of ag research this year, mostly about old methods of growing corn. One interesting point of disagreement between researchers is the levels of productivity they claim for Indian agriculture. Some researchers are of the opinion that Indians got as low as 10-12 bushels of corn/acre, others claim averages in the teens-twenties. And still others claim 40s to 60s.

Now obviously, this would be very location/weather/variety dependent. But last year was a crap year at my garden, very dry, cool spring, nothing sprouted on time, for weeks actually. I hand-carried water from my dad's kitchen 75 yards away more than once. Most of that water went on the tomatoes and cantaloupes, but if I saw corn with curled leaves it would get a slug of water too. One day only, I watered every hill of corn.

We got decent (not great) rains towards the end of June and early July, then dry again. So, how did I get nearly 60 bushels/acre?

Many researchers claim most of the Indians did not fertilize their gardens. I did put NPK and gypsum on the garden, and it got NPK in prior years. On the other hand, it's a worn-out garden, in use for 17 years with corn, not nearly enough organic matter added, should be well-stocked with bugs and diseases. Soil is pretty poor. It was a cow lot next to the old barn. A few inches down is either hard red clay, or rocks and gravel.

So I really doubt the lowest figures. Even averages in the teens I am very skeptical about. Indian production in the 20s, maybe, on their poorer land or really bad weather years. I think it more likely the Indian ladies did fertilize their land, and probably got yields at least in the 20s except in very poor years. I really doubt that people who absolutely depended on corn for survival, who had hundreds to thousands of years of cultural knowledge, would do worse than a guy who is just doing it for fun, in a pretty bad year.

By the way, I am also posting this at Beesource.com. I hope it is Okay to post things here that were already posted elsewhere. I chronicled the whole year of this garden over there, before I even knew Permies existed.

One interesting point of disagreement between researchers is the levels of productivity they claim  

 
One must check the details of the study because most research studies are biased toward the desired outcome.  Was the intent to discourage or encourage the use of old methods rather than depend on commercially promoted methods.

Hans Quistorff wrote:

One interesting point of disagreement between researchers is the levels of productivity they claim  

 
One must check the details of the study because most research studies are biased toward the desired outcome.  Was the intent to discourage or encourage the use of old methods rather than depend on commercially promoted methods.

I read quite a few studies in full. I think this is a legitimate scholarly dispute. However, I also read a whole bunch of studies where various researchers attempted to replicate 3 sisters techniques, including several from people who obviously had a desired outcome.

Sadly, all the trials I have read have very serious shortcomings. Rarely did they make any real attempt to replicate the ancient techniques very closely. They used plows, for example. Some used chemical fertilizers. None used fire. None reused the same hills several years in a row. When they did plant in hills, they used plows to rebuild them every year, or, they built new hills on a different plot of land.

I plan to carefully document my time, techniques, labor, inputs and results next year.

Thom,

Not to change the direction of your thread, but you mentioned in another thread that your plan for next year was to steer your landrace corn toward a more flinty type of the purple/red coloration.  I found this ear of flint corn (I saw just a couple small dimples), with purple husk, purple cob, & purple kernels that reminded me of your post.  

I didn't know if you or anyone else knew how this coloration is inherited?  Is it predictable?

Cy Cobb wrote:Thom,

Not to change the direction of your thread, but you mentioned in another thread that your plan for next year was to steer your landrace corn toward a more flinty type of the purple/red coloration.  I found this ear of flint corn (I saw just a couple small dimples), with purple husk, purple cob, & purple kernels that reminded me of your post.  

I didn't know if you or anyone else knew how this coloration is inherited?  Is it predictable?

Yes, color is inherited, through a rather complex process. There are quite a few different color genes in corn, some affecting different parts of the plant. Some of my ears look just like that ear, and in fact, that ear you pictured is about my goal.

Cy Cobb wrote:Thom,
Is it predictable?

Yes and no. I have been able to increase the purple color gradually from a handful to a majority of stalks. As I did, stalk, husk, silk, cob color also changed. But, I often get a pure white cob with purple seeds. Or a green plant and husk with purple seeds. Or a purple cob with yellow seeds.

So it's something that can be selected for, but it's not one or two genes acting as and on/off switch.

Selection was slow also because color was only one trait. I was also selecting for size of ear. low insect damage etc, and was also mixing in different corn from time to time.

Seed for next year's 3 sisters trial. Most of the seed will be from the deep purple ears, but a few each from as many other cobs as I can fit in. Keep some genetic variety in it.

Selection for deep purple/red.

Corn/potato intercrop. Worked fairly well. Took the potatoes a LONG time to sprout, too dry. Next year will plant the potatoes much earlier, before the corn goes in.

Thom, what's your corn spacing for your intercropped multi-sisters corn field?  Is it around 3 feet between rows/mounds?

Thom, have you experimented with higher density in the corn?

This year I experimented with planting in a more Hopi style (though, not with the same distance between hills that they use) and was really pleased with the results. Basically just dropped a handful of seeds at each planting location. Ended up getting about 10 stalks per planting location. What I observed was that the plants produced much thinner stalks, but the corn yield wasn't affected. In fact, my max per cob yield increased from a third of a pound to more than a half pound... though, there were many factors behind the increase. They resisted lodging (we have regular 40mph gusts with wind speeds getting up to 60mph.) They resisted pests (or, at least, there were enough seeds in each planting location that any that were predated upon weren't missed.) Planting, maintenance, and harvest were all much easier, as was seed selection for my landrace (since it's easy to recognize what's really doing well when it's growing in the exact same spot as 9 other plants.) The only fertility was a bit of compost, a meadow hay mulch, and occasional nettle/thistle/comfrey tea. And the same deal as your existing hills. You can start small, with regard to prep work, and slowly improve things over the course of the season.

Cy Cobb wrote:Thom, what's your corn spacing for your intercropped multi-sisters corn field?  Is it around 3 feet between rows/mounds?

More like 4 feet between hills, some a bit wider. I wanted plenty of space for the intercrops. I planted 2 or 3 seeds per hill initially, but due to no rain and poor germination a lot of hills got replanted. By end of season some hills had one, some 2, three. And a couple hills had none.

Plan next spring to plant 5 or more seeds per hill, and then thin back to 3 once I see how they are doing.

Mathew Trotter wrote:Thom, have you experimented with higher density in the corn?

This year I experimented with planting in a more Hopi style (though, not with the same distance between hills that they use) and was really pleased with the results. Basically just dropped a handful of seeds at each planting location. Ended up getting about 10 stalks per planting location. What I observed was that the plants produced much thinner stalks, but the corn yield wasn't affected. In fact, my max per cob yield increased from a third of a pound to more than a half pound... though, there were many factors behind the increase. They resisted lodging (we have regular 40mph gusts with wind speeds getting up to 60mph.) They resisted pests (or, at least, there were enough seeds in each planting location that any that were predated upon weren't missed.) Planting, maintenance, and harvest were all much easier, as was seed selection for my landrace (since it's easy to recognize what's really doing well when it's growing in the exact same spot as 9 other plants.) The only fertility was a bit of compost, a meadow hay mulch, and occasional nettle/thistle/comfrey tea. And the same deal as your existing hills. You can start small, with regard to prep work, and slowly improve things over the course of the season.

Nice pics!

I have planted much higher density in the past. In fact my normal style is to plant corn seeds at very high density and then weed out the weaker looking stalks. So the plants were a few inches apart, in rows about 3 feet apart. It worked fine, but I decided just for fun to try intercropping, so ended up now in hills 4 feet apart, with 2 or 3 seeds per hill of corn.

Boiled corn in ash today. Home made nixtamal. It's my first attempt.

I made my first batch of nixtamalized corn this fall using "Cal" that I found at a Mexican market.  I'll eventually try ash, but didn't have any at the time.  I thought I'd try a more measured recipe for my first time anyway.  My lime water was a bit on the weak side, but it got the job done, it just took way longer than the recipe said it was supposed to take.  I want to say I weighed the dry corn on a digital kitchen scale in grams, & used 1% of that weight in cal.  In the end though, I drained it in a collander, & ended up with a full gallon ziploc bag full of hominy for the freezer.  Any time I want to add some to a dish, I just break off a chunk.  

Try this very simple recipe:  Good as a breakfast or side dish to a meal.
1 part diced ham (or whatever meat you want to add) to 3 parts frozen nixtamalized corn in a small sauce pan.
Add a dollop of bacon grease or butter on top, a little salt & a little more pepper to taste.
Cover with water, turn heat on high, & let it simmer until the water steams off to brown the ham & corn a little.

Finally got around to cooking up some of the nixtamalized corn. I tried a basic tortilla, and it wasn't great. Texture poor. I believe due to too coarse a grind. So I added milk and egg as I normally do and it made a good pancake. Quite different in texture and flavor from those made from dry corn meal.

I've not tried to grind mine yet (still looking for the right one at the right price).  I have until next year's harvest to make a decision though, so I'm not rushing into it.  Are you able to run your nixtamalized corn through again for a finer grind on your next batch?  

Cy Cobb wrote:I've not tried to grind mine yet (still looking for the right one at the right price).  I have until next year's harvest to make a decision though, so I'm not rushing into it.  Are you able to run your nixtamalized corn through again for a finer grind on your next batch?  

It turns to sticky pudding, too hard on my machine which is not designed for that. It's just a standard kitchen blender.

Haven't ground any of my nixtamalized corn yet either, on account of it just feels like extra work for no additional nutrition. Plus, finer grind = larger insulin spike, so I've been leaning towards eating things as whole as possible for steady energy throughout the day.

Haven't gotten a perfect batch of nixtamalized corn yet. Thinking there might be a genetic component, because mine seems to need a lot longer than any recipes call for. Or maybe it's just the best that these particular genetics will produce at the moment and I'll have to select for better.

Does the blender make it a stickier than a playdough texture? Have you made tortillas with store bought masa to see how they differ? I was pretty good at making tortillas there for a minute, and was going to run some of my corn through the food processor to grind it and give it a go, since I can't invest in a grinder right now... and definitely don't have the time or patience to mash it on a rock like the old days. 😂

I've found that pre-grinding in a meat-grinder attachment for our stand-mixer before transferring it to the Victoria mill makes the hand-grinding quite a bit less work and doesn't make the masa gummy the way a food processor does. (But you have to have all the doohickies, of course.)

You can use one of those small grain grinders that is used for cracking corn.  Maybe let it dry and then thru something else?  Has anyone tried that?  We use a KitchenAid with grain mill attachment to just grind our dry corn and then sift it, the coarser we use like grits and the fine as cornmeal.   Mostly Hopi Blue corn.  Planted as a Three Sisters patch, but raccoons found it, then groundhogs who climbed it also and knocked it down, also deer.  This is with a fence around the garden, but not tall enough to keep deer out, they need at least 8 feet high.  We only harvested  two small ears and they are not the best.  Severe drought followed by too much rain and then drought again devastated everyone’s gardens this past year.  

Mathew Trotter wrote:

Does the blender make it a stickier than a playdough texture? Have you made tortillas with store bought masa to see how they differ? . 😂

About like playdough. I had to add a lot of water to get it fine. Then I had to add dry cornmeal to get it back to tortilla dough texture. It tasted Okay, but was a lousy tortilla. Much better as pancake batter, with more water and milk, egg, oil, salt.

By the way, I didn't have a lot of success with storebought masa either, don't have good technique.

Faye Streiff wrote:Planted as a Three Sisters patch, but raccoons found it, then groundhogs who climbed it also and knocked it down, also deer.    

Pee frequently around the garden edges. Humans are predators and our scent may keep deer away.

Thom Bri wrote:

By the way, I didn't have a lot of success with storebought masa either, don't have good technique.

It is a skill. I don't make very good tortillas after I've had a break from making them for a while. And I literally have one cast iron skillet that they'll cook in properly. Tried to use the griddle so I could make more than one at once and they just wouldn't cook properly. Not sure if it's the seasoning on the griddle, or just that it doesn't heat evenly.

There are two things I've found that are essential to a good tortilla, and they take practice. The first is to cook them on each side until they have good color and the press on the middle of them with your utensil or fingers. If they're cooked all the way through this will cause them to puff up and separate into layers which is very important for the final texture of the tortilla. And then, once it' deflates again, take it off of the heat and put in a seal or covered container of some sort to allow them to steam for a good 2-4 minutes. This finishes the cooking and gives a much more pliable and stretchy tortilla and massively improves the texture. If you don't do those two things you kinda end up with a relatively stiff, dry disk of corn.

Faye Streiff wrote:We use a KitchenAid with grain mill attachment to just grind our dry corn and then sift it, the coarser we use like grits and the fine as cornmeal.

Just gotta be mindful that, if corn is a significant part of your diet like it is for me, this will eventually kill you, and it's not a pretty death. I mean, I imagine most people are still eating commercial food, but if the aim is to grow 100% of your food and corn is a big part of that...

I plan to write a paper on my techniques, and submitted a proposal for funding. Submitting to science journals is expensive!

https://manifund.org/

Mathew Trotter wrote:

Faye Streiff wrote:We use a KitchenAid with grain mill attachment to just grind our dry corn and then sift it, the coarser we use like grits and the fine as cornmeal.

Just gotta be mindful that, if corn is a significant part of your diet like it is for me, this will eventually kill you, and it's not a pretty death. I mean, I imagine most people are still eating commercial food, but if the aim is to grow 100% of your food and corn is a big part of that...

What is it that kills you?

Thom Bri wrote:What is it that kills you?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellagra

Thom Bri wrote:
This was not a pure, organic crop. No insecticides, have never used them on my corn. Weed control was by hand, except I did spray Canada thistles near the garden, and some clumps of grass. But I did use commercial N/P/K fertilizer and gypsum. Plan for next spring is to plant without additional fertilizer. But I will spray those thistles!

Just wanted to point out that thistles are edible. They actually taste pretty good.