January 07, 2009
The Three Sisters
Well, they've gone wild down there. They look very cool and all three plants producing well, but I do wonder if some of the corn are going to get smothered out by the beans. I found half a dozen nice long beans which we can use for dinner tonight (or maybe I'll turn them into a green-bean dip so the kids are more likely to eat it with carrot sticks as a pre-dinner snack).
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2 comments:
Ahhh, green bean dip yum! How beautifully wild your garden grows!
I followed all the hype about this method here in the UK a few years back and was really mad when the time came to harvest the corn. The beans had wound round and round them and I had to forfeit the bean to get the corn. Needless to say I only plant non-climbing beans with the corn now.
They still go on about this method on TV here, but Carol Klein (who is one of the presenters who goes on about it most) says in her book on veg gardening, that this method only works if you leave all of the crops to fully ripen on the plant....ie for dried beans and dried corn....as the Indians would have done. They used the corn for flour and the beans as a winter protein source.
I think the presenters get carried away with the quaintness of the name and history of this method of planting and don't think it through. Countless crops of beans all over the UK must have also been wasted. I think most of us would sacrifice the beans for the sweetcorn!
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