Three Sisters Garden year 3, 2025

To add, watermelon 100% failure, only one sprouted very late, and no fruit. Cantaloupe is bland this year. I blame the Canadians.

Reading in the local Ag newspaper, Illinois Agrinews, average corn yields in McLean County Illinois (prime corn land) are expected to average 233 bushels/acre (15.7 tonnes/hectare). That's simply amazing.

Me, with my organic methods, no chemical weed, insect or fungal controls and using open-pollinated seed, hope to get 60 bushels/acre (4 tonnes/hectare). The last two years I got 59 both years.

By historical averages I am doing much better than pre-modern standards. Averages across the US before modern agriculture started in the 1930s was 30 bushels/acre, but I am in the corn belt and that number was nation-wide including much poorer land and climate areas.

I would dearly love to do a side-by-side comparison of my corn and modern hybrid seed under equal conditions, both in a high-input field and also in my organic plot. Maybe next spring...

Thom Bri wrote:Not 3 sisters related, but for years I have been collecting plastic containers that had plants in them. I never re-used them and I hardly ever start plants early and transplant.
Something happened in my brain this spring and now I have more seeds in pots than I have places to put them. The peppers pretty much ALL sprouted, three egg cartons worth. A dozen have been moved to pots.
Today I made a dozen more filled with several varieties of cantaloupes. Some seeds are fairly old, 2020, so I put lots of seeds in each little pot, hoping one or two will sprout. If many do I'll pinch the poorer-looking ones.

Next step is to figure out where to plant all these plants, assuming they grow.

Hi Thom
How did the 3 sisters go this year?

Lisa Sture wrote:

Thom Bri wrote:Not 3 sisters related, but for years I have been collecting plastic containers that had plants in them. I never re-used them and I hardly ever start plants early and transplant.
Something happened in my brain this spring and now I have more seeds in pots than I have places to put them. The peppers pretty much ALL sprouted, three egg cartons worth. A dozen have been moved to pots.
Today I made a dozen more filled with several varieties of cantaloupes. Some seeds are fairly old, 2020, so I put lots of seeds in each little pot, hoping one or two will sprout. If many do I'll pinch the poorer-looking ones.

Next step is to figure out where to plant all these plants, assuming they grow.

Hi Thom
How did the 3 sisters go this year?

Pretty well. I put a long post about that yesterday, scroll up to page 4.

An interesting article about ancient corn growing in Canada, with corn traded to the sub-arctic! There is a great pic of how corn was dried in old times. Temps were a lot warmer then than later during the Euro invasion period when it was very cold. Modern temps are similar to the earlier warmer period.

NORTHERNMOST PRECONTACT MAIZE IN NORTH AMERICA
https://www.lakeheadu.ca/sites/default/files/uploads/53/outlines/2014-15/NECU5311/Boyd%202.pdf

If the link doesn't work, go to Google Scholar and put in the title, it will pop right up.

Another failure, glass gem corn. Pollinated very poorly. Plants appeared healthy but it was very late and slow to pollinate, much later than the other corn mostly. Many of the plants produced 5 or more 'ears' none of which were much good. Some of it is still green when all the other corn has been harvested. I'll post pics, maybe tomorrow.

Good things about the glass gem, it was quite resistant to bird damage again this year. I saw signs that birds pecked the ears but gave up. Maybe the husks are too thick and tough? Also mold damage low again this year. But there was more ear worm damage this year than last year.

Thinking about adding some popcorn in next spring. Popcorn is an extreme flint type corn. So extreme that it often germinates poorly. Hoping to gradually reduce the dent and sweet corn genetics and increase the flint. Saw some purple popcorn in the market recently. Might be fun to plant a few hills and see how it grows.

This year's glass gem, along with a bundle from last year, on the lower right. Last year a lot of 4-5 inch ears, often with several ears per plant. This year they are smaller, mostly, and poorly pollinated, with the secondary ears very poor. There should be 80+ ears but what you see is what I got. There are a few still green in the field.

The second pic is what I believe to be glass gem crosses from last year and earlier. There were a lot of these; this is just what I had handy today.

Sweetness genes in sweet corn are recessive.
https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/sweet-corn-production.html

That means that if I see a few sweet corn seeds in an otherwise normal ear, that ear's parent plant was carrying (at least) one sweetness gene and one normal gene. All the seeds on that ear, even if they appear normal, have a 50/50 chance of carrying a sweetness gene.

So since I am trying to eliminate the sweet trait from my flint corn, I should not use any ear for seed that has even one sweet seed on it. This explains why I am having trouble getting rid of sweet trait. Lots of my ears have some sweet seeds, including many of the very best ears. For many years I planted the two types of corn side by side, and they thoroughly crossed.

Getting to seed saving season. So far have several varieties of muskmelon, squash, a couple varieties of beans and corn.

Below is a pic of my saved sweet corn seed. This is a mix of my flint corn plus many different varieties of sweet corn seed I have bought over the years. Last year and this year I did not add any commercial sweet corn seed to the mix. I ate most main and the secondary ears. Saved seeds are from the tiny nubbin ears that were left. This is far more seeds than I will need.

A surprise win! I wasn't expecting much from this cantaloupe. Most of the smooth, green ones have very pale, sweet flesh like a honeydew, but this one is excellent. The flesh is firm but not too hard, with good taste and sweetness. The rind is very thin.

For years I have been saving seeds and growing a very good cantaloupe that is rugby-ball-shaped, with smooth skin and not much netting. This is an extreme version. Definitely saving seeds!

Picking and shelling lots of beans the last few days. It's been a very good year for beans. Some years September is very wet and humid, and lots of beans rot in the pods. Not this year.

But I got to thinking about the logic of the 3 sisters. Beans don't need to climb to make lots of beans; they grow perfectly well running along the ground. But, beans growing along the ground tend to get damp and rot easily. So the purpose of growing climbing beans with corn isn't to give the beans a place to grow. It's to prevent losses before harvest. Plus, harvesting beans at head height is a lot easier than bending down and picking them off the ground.

Beans climbing

Post corn harvest. Still lots of beans and tomatoes.

Shelling beans all week. It's slow work, but relaxing and I can sit and read at the same time.

About 3/4 are the tan, flat ones, with a mix of whatever else. The red, black, and white ones are standard supermarket beans, Kidney, Great Northern, and Black Beans. The brown ones and the black or brown speckled ones just showed up. Crosses of some sort I suppose.

Any idea what kind of bean this is?
Various degrees of drying beans.

Squash was a total bust in the 3-sisters garden. I got one immature Kabocha and a couple zucchinis before the squash bugs eliminated them all. This pic is from a small non-organic garden nearby. Sad. Hope to try again next spring. I'd sure like some tips on how to grow squash without insecticides!

Another new bean. These appeared suddenly a year or 2 years ago. They appear to be a cross or mutation of the purple beans I have been growing forever. Pic shows fresh purple shell and when dried has no color. Original bean was tan.

Gardening year is winding down. All the squash are picked except a few late zucchini. Corn is long gone. Still a few green beans, and lots and lots of dry beans left to pick.
A pic showing what the garden looks like in October. Everything is covered in 'weeds'. A lot of the greenery is common mallow. Even though it is an aggressive weed all year long, I kind of like it; it has pretty little flowers. Same plant family as hollyhock. It just takes over the garden as soon as I stop pulling it up.

I am still a long way away from posting final results for 2025, but it's looking pretty good. I am in the middle of shelling the corn by hand. It's hard on the fingers but quite relaxing. I do it as I read novels on line. Just finished up my second 5-gallon bucket of corn and starting a third. I bought 4 buckets, but it's obvious I'll need to buy a few more.

One bucket holds 35 pounds of corn, about 15 Kilos. Also in the pic are the beans, about 20 Lbs.

Sounds like common mallows are your natural cover crops.
I planted mixed brassicas and red kidney beans in late August under corn residues. The napa cabbages and rapini are already bolting. The bean bushes are for green beans.

Tom, so glad that the corn and beans have done well for you, even if some of the other crops didn't make it (watermelon etc.)

May so glad you're getting some autumn harvest, even if some things aren't going as you hoped re. early bolting.  Almost all of my attempts at planting plants for autumn harvest were obliterated by the resident squirrel.  I'd cook her and eat her if we lived farther out in the country, but since we're too close in I will settle for using that mesh netting for seeds next time.

Thanks for the update Thom - lovely pictures of the garden, it really looks how I imagine! Pity about the squash bugs - we must have some threads on those....Do you eat the mallow? I gather it makes a good green vegetable or even salad.

Nancy Reading wrote:Thanks for the update Thom - lovely pictures of the garden, it really looks how I imagine! Pity about the squash bugs - we must have some threads on those....Do you eat the mallow? I gather it makes a good green vegetable or even salad.

I nibble on the young leaves but don't make any effort with them. They taste Okay. I should try to get my wife interested in them; she eats lots of greens, but is in some way more conservative than I.

Re squash bugs. I have been reading up on them. Several suggestions. One is a trap crop. Plant a variety of squash they really really like, like Hubbard squash, around the edges of the garden. They go for those and mostly leave the crop alone. Problem with that is my variety of squash is close to Hubbard, and they really like it too, so I kind of doubt it would work well.

Another is to plant things that confuse the squash bugs sense of smell. Radishes and marigolds are suggested. I plan to save lots of marigold seeds, and buy radish seeds and scatter them around my squash hills.

Third suggestion is to way super overplant squash and just let the bugs kill half the plants, hoping they leave enough alone to get a crop. I'll do this too. It's my normal way to get around animal damage anyway. Plant enough for the squirrels, wood chucks, racoons and deer to all get their fair share.

Riona Abhainn wrote:  Almost all of my attempts at planting plants for autumn harvest were obliterated by the resident squirrel.  I'd cook her and eat her if we lived farther out in the country, but since we're too close in I will settle for using that mesh netting for seeds next time.

I live trap some critters and deposit them in a woods a few miles away. I have shot 2 squirrels in my suburban lot, but not for molesting the plants. They get up on my roof, chew holes in the siding and nest there, making noises over our heads. A silent pellet gun did the trick. I don't like doing it. I like the squirrels and don't mind sharing a few garden goodies. They dig up potted plants, so I put stones on top the dirt.

I've enjoyed seeing your progress in this experiment - very encouraging!  
Squash is one of my favorite crops to grow and eat, and I dedicate a large block of my garden to it each year, in a mixed planting including Sunflowers and Zinnias and weeds.

Squash Bugs are tenacious in my garden, and I spend about a half-hour every other day from mid-June to mid-August crawling around squishing them.... and still they decimate most of this type.

My observation is that Squash Bugs greatly favor the C. Maxima types (Hubbard, etc) and secondly go after C. Pepo 'Zucchini' types, and sometimes Cucumbers even.  
They mainly don't bother the C. Moschata types (Butternuts, etc) and also don't bother the other sorts of C. Pepo in my garden.

I've considered abandoning C. Maxima (even though I've been trying to make a landrace).
Yet I wonder if I didn't grow it at all, would the Squash Bugs learn to favor the other Cucurbits?

Anyways, thank you for your pioneering and detailed sharing of your work!

George Ingles wrote:

My observation is that Squash Bugs greatly favor the C. Maxima types (Hubbard, etc) and secondly go after C. Pepo 'Zucchini' types, and sometimes Cucumbers even.  
They mainly don't bother the C. Moschata types (Butternuts, etc) and also don't bother the other sorts of C. Pepo in my garden.

I've considered abandoning C. Maxima (even though I've been trying to make a landrace).
Yet I wonder if I didn't grow it at all, would the Squash Bugs learn to favor the other Cucurbits?

I have read that Maxima are most susceptible, and it seems to be true. Unfortunately, I plant the squash my wife strongly prefers, which is Japanese Kabocha, a maxima.

I have seen squash bugs on other species, cucumbers and cantaloupe, but they don't seem to proliferate, so I don't worry about it. I have even seen them on sunflowers and beans. The eggs anyway, but not any nymphs. I suppose there is some chemical or nutritional factor they only get from squash.

I had partial success with squashes in the three sister garden. A few vines were strong right off the beginning and set fruits in just 6 weeks. They were both single vines so the first female flowers appeared early after about 16 leaves. After late July we had a flash drought, and other squash plants just kept aborting or had tiny fruits. Squash bugs started to show up so I pulled the plants in mid August. I ended up with four squashes with OK quality. The high sensitivity to heat and drought was somewhat unexpected for me. At the same time, observations from other parts of the yard suggested a molybdenum deficiency, the least abundant essential element that is also less available in acidic soil. I checked the roots of the remaining lack luster beans, there was no nodule at all. Mo-containing enzymes are involved in nitrogen metabolism, as well as the synthesis of plant hormones for growth and stress response. The deficiency might explain why the garden failed early and the presence of squash bugs.

Picked the last of the peppers yesterday, over 100 counting the small ones too. It was supposed to frost hard last night but didn't. Brought the frost-intolerant plants inside too.

Plan for today is to start a giant trench in the back yard garden for all the fall leaves. I found an almost endless source for rotting tree trunks so will be adding that into the lower layers. Very interested to see how much what I added last fall has decomposed.

Shelled about 150 Lbs. of corn so far. I am guessing maybe another 30 or 40 pounds left, then done. If so that will put me down 30 or 40 pounds compared to last year. Sad, but not at all surprising considering this year's dry weather, and also the failure of the glass gem corn this year.

Finished shelling the corn. Roughly 195 Lbs. or 3.5 bushels. That would be about 50 bushels/acre (1270 Kg/hectare).
Last year was 59 bushels/acre (230 Lbs.).
Not too unhappy with that. The weather in May and June was miserably dry. Also, 1 out of 16 rows of corn was a different variety that pretty much failed to produce anything.

I need to do a full and accurate measurement of the corn weight, but the above shouldn't be off by more than a few pounds.

Be careful out there folks. I've been using an axe since I was a kid 50+ years ago. If I hadn't been wearing glasses I might not have an eye right now. Busting up branches and a broken end flew up and smacked me a hard one. Never in 50+ years had this happen.

Uh oh.

Talking with my daughter on the phone yesterday, she asked me what I might like for Christmas. She mentioned some web site with lots of unique seeds. Thinking for a while I said 'Andean purple corn, purple popcorn, Kabocha squash, any kind of wildflowers, and, whatever catches your fancy.'

She replied, 'That's what I already figured you would say.'

My kids know me well. In recent year I have gotten corn seeds, flower seeds, cantaloupe seeds, a wheelbarrow, a huge tarp, and beehive parts. Tomorrow I will probably use the snow blower the kids got me a few years ago. I am blessed.

Down to the last 4 kabocha squash in the garage. Soon all gone. I am saving a few seeds from each one. Plan is to go crazy next spring and plant the whole garden in squash between every corn hill. The squash bugs and borers will have a wonderful time. Hopefully I'll get a few survivors.

Not a Three Sisters' Garden expert but what I remember reading was the garden location was moved often along the Missouri riverbank. With this came new fertility in the river sedimentation deposited along the shore. Fertility is what makes things grow well, in this case natural fertility in the form of silt and maybe a few dead fish !! I have a theory of what I call "accelerated growth", growth beyond what is thought to be average. If as nearly exact as possible the key fertility is available along with water a 90 day variety can mature in 75 days for example. Has a lot to do with growing degree days, have pushed some garden plants to maturity a bit faster than normal, I think. Red Norland potatoes in 53 days from emergence.
Back to the TSG, think of all of the fertility elements present in the silt from the river, essentially all of the elements on Earth. You could replicate this somewhat with fertility from the oceans, kelp or liquid fish. I have a book called "The Enlivened Rock Powders" and it tells how soils are the fragmentation of larger rocks, gravel, etc. and why they bring fertility when added to soil. The Law Of The Minimum can't be overstated.

Doug McEvers wrote:
Back to the TSG, think of all of the fertility elements present in the silt from the river, essentially all of the elements on Earth. You could replicate this somewhat with fertility from the oceans, kelp or liquid fish. I have a book called "The Enlivened Rock Powders" and it tells how soils are the fragmentation of larger rocks, gravel, etc. and why they bring fertility when added to soil. The Law Of The Minimum can't be overstated.

Other than hay/straw I am not adding much. Some ash from the fireplace 2 winters ago, and buckets of soil to top off the hills in really poor parts of the garden. My 'plan' is to let certain weeds grow between the rows to draw up nutrients.

I read some papers recently on applying rock dust, simply ground up rock, to fields. They got surprising yield benefits.

Christmas gifts from daughter. Only problem left is figuring out where to plant all this stuff!

The Andean purple corn is neat. I'll probably decide to plant it in a separate patch interspersed with my own flint corn, then mix the descendants in with my main crop in later years. It's a flour corn so very different from what I have now.

The two squash varieties are both maxima, so should blend well with my kabocha squash, which is pretty inbred and needs some mixing up.

Thom,

Your post on seeing results from rock powders brought something to mind. I would notice along the rail line to Minneapolis/St. Paul the big bluestem was very vigorous and colorful. It was growing not far from the rail bed as I recall.  Asked my prairie expert friend what he thought about it, could the fertility be from the granite dust from the rail bed? He said yes but it also could be from the coal dust that comes off the rail cars. Likely a combination of the two, black carbon from the coal and minerals from the granite. Humates are basically from lignite coal deposits as I understand it.

Nice collection of seeds! It seems like I got the Montana based purple corn instead of the Peruvian one. Still it didn't explain why that corn matured way faster in my place. I am suspecting that it associates with specific microbes in the rhizosphere which are not present in my soil.  So far I have failed five times, but it's getting closer. This year's morado corns were free of pests and with less weirdness. So hopefully next year I would figure it out. It will be interesting to see how the two types of purple corns do in your area.

Ate the last of the potatoes this week, so from here on it's store-bought for us. Not quite as good.

I'd like to grow more but I made a mistake one year and ended up with 200 pounds of potatoes on the basement floor. Ever since them my wife has been like 'No more potatoes'.

It's 2026. Closing down this thread and starting a new one.