Corn Companion Plants - How to build a Corn Polyculture?

Good Morning Permies!

I am already starting to plan my corn grow for next year and I want to add a bit of permaculture flair to it. I want to primarily grow some dent corn, but I don't want to have a space that is just corn. I am familiar with the ideas of the 'Three Sisters' and intend on following the ideas it provides to try and leverage my growing space.

My ask is this, what plants have you found to grow well around corn? Is it just squash and beans?

I know for a fact that after the corn has sprouted, creeping charlie makes a great ground cover that doesn't seem to stunt the plants.

Thank you in advance.

I attempted to grow summer squash with my corn but a local family of rabbits set up shop nearby and absolutely wiped those plants out.

They are lucky they are cute!

French marigolds would help keep pests away.  Sweet asylum smells nice and helps keep weeds and pests away.

We plant our corn in a 4 ft by 4 ft raised bed so that is too small to do the Threes sisters method of polyculture.

According to the chart on my fridge:
Sunflowers, amaranth, beans, peas, and other legumes, pumpkin, squash and cucumber, melons and other cucurbits, and Parsley.

Apparently, cabbage, tomato and celery don't play nice with it, so I'd avoid those families unless you wish to try proving the chart on my fridge is from a different ecosystem, therefore works differently.

My chart says that beans like strawberries - and also maize and sunflowers (maize is corn - just like zucchini are courgettes ). However, some of the things that beans like are in the "corn doesn't like" column, so that might be a ground cover to experiment with?

I've tried corn in the past but the deer and bunnies like the beans too much, and we never got as far as dealing with how much the racoon like the corn...

If you're interested enough, this Going To Seed course about campesenos growing a milpa is centered on corn, beans, and squash, but there's some great info about the quelites (link-1, link-2) and tomat(ill)o, fruit and nut trees, etc. that they grow in the milpa.

https://goingtoseed.org/products/2597056

(But it is a lot of Spanish-language video (with good English subtitles) to get through.)

Things I regularly grow in my 3-sisters garden:
Corn
beans
soybeans
tomatoes
potatoes
squash and zucchini
tobacco
sunflowers
marigolds
cantaloupes

The main issue is sunlight. I plant in hills 4-6 feet apart, 3-4 plants per hill. Tighter than this and the vine crops don't produce much. Squash in particular does less well with corn. Beans are planted into the same hills. Everything else goes between the hills so there is a 2-foot gap between the corn and other plants.

Yes, sunlight is the biggest factor in planning companions for corn.

The first consideration is the type of sunlight your garden gets: direct sun or partially shaded; bright sun in clear air or filtered sun through clouds: high sun in lower latitudes, low slanted sun in higher ones.

Next, there is the amount of sun that reaches the ground. This is dictated by two things: the spacing you allow between plants when you sow the seed and the variety of corn you grow (how bushy, how many tillers, and whether the leaves tend to grow at a steep upward angle or out flat)  

To grow most 3 sisters plans, you need bright hot sun and  wide spacing between corn plants or clumps of corn plants.
With closer spacing and dimmer or slanted sunlight, leafy crops will be better companions than fruiting crops.

Leafy crops include all the lettuces and their relatives like endive; all the kales and collards;  all the mustard/turnip family like Asian greens; the chard and spinach family; and specialty greens like purslane and mache, as well as leafy herbs like parsley. In temperate  climates, and at the spacings most people would be using in small gardens, these are often the best choice under corn. A mix of low-input greens like mustards, Texel, Asian greens, lettuce, chicory and chard can be easy to care for and extremely productive, especially when you mix in some edible herbs and flowers that like cooler conditions and attract beneficial insects. Cilantro, calendula, and alyssum are top choices for this.

Fruiting crops would be all the plants where the part you eat is the seed-bearing structure: Beans, tomatoes, squash, tomatillos, eggplant, melon, cucumbers, etc

Crops where you eat the flower are usually considered leafy types, but many of them (i.e. cauliflower and broccoli) need too much light and space for their large frame and wide crowns to qualify as companions under corn. Root crops are likewise not good companions for corn, both because of their light requirements and root competition with the corn. (Not to mention that using them involves wading into the corn patch and disturbing the soil)

If you're trying for a fairly dense stand of maize and end up with gaps (due to inconsistent germination or critters taking the seeds) you can fill in with grain amaranth transplants. Seed a transplant bed of amaranth (high density, by broadcasting) a few weeks before maize planting, then pop them into the gaps once the maize emerges. If you keep the roots wet the whole time they're out of the ground, they transplant okay. I like that this still produces grain in those gaps, even if not the main grain (maize) that you were planning for.

We always do asian long beans. Have put in squash successfully. This year it's corn, long beans, and potatoes, which has done quite well. Best of luck.

This year I planted sweet potatoes as a companion plant with my corn.

Anne Miller wrote:
We plant our corn in a 4 ft by 4 ft raised bed so that is too small to do the Threes sisters method of polyculture.

Many years ago my mother would plant inside an old tire.   She would put a squash plant in the center and  8 or 10 corn around that and pole beans next to each corn after it came up.
I remember she had several tires just touching in a straight line.  

I might try that this next year as I need to amend the soil in the tires I have used for the past 3 years for zucchini.

Nik Brindley wrote:This year I planted sweet potatoes as a companion plant with my corn.

I did this last year, & for my first foray into sweet potatoes, I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

It did take them awhile to fill in & be a proper ground cover, so I occasionally tried to weed out any heavy tall grasses & such until the vines covered well in mid summer.  I liked that they didn't try to pull the corn down. Also, if you have rabbit pressure, planted heavily like I did, they couldn't keep up with the rate of growth of a large patch. In the end, I harvested sweet potatoes for storage, leaves that I dehydrated for teas, soups, seasonings, & vines that I coiled & dried for future weaving projects.

I learned a lot in this process, but still have more to learn before I've mastered it. I grew 5 or 6 different varieties of sweet potato, and was hoping for true seed, but didn't get any. Maybe I'll try again sometime once I learn how the pros get seed.

Timothy Norton wrote:Good Morning Permies!

I am already starting to plan my corn grow for next year and I want to add a bit of permaculture flair to it. I want to primarily grow some dent corn, but I don't want to have a space that is just corn. I am familiar with the ideas of the 'Three Sisters' and intend on following the ideas it provides to try and leverage my growing space.

My ask is this, what plants have you found to grow well around corn? Is it just squash and beans?

I know for a fact that after the corn has sprouted, creeping charlie makes a great ground cover that doesn't seem to stunt the plants.

Thank you in advance.

Did you get the 3 sisters garden in?