According to Iroquois legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together. This tradition of mixing corn, beans and squash in the same mounds, widespread among Native American farming societies, is believed to create a healthy,  sustainable system that provided  soil fertility and a healthy diet to generations of Native Americans, and colonists.

Growing a Three Sisters garden has also become a kind of feminist symbol and garden, it was named to evoke three inseparable sisters, or more broadly, women’s unflagging support for one another.

We planted our Three Sisters garden last year and successfully grew corn,  squash, beans, cucumber and sunflowers. Today, Maria and I dug out the weeds, watered and raked the soil (closely supervised by the ever-curious Fate, who must be a part of everything) and put up the fences again.

I checked the Farmers Almanac for nutritional details:

• As older sisters often do, the corn offers the beans needed support.
• The beans, the giving sister, pull nitrogen from the air and bring it to the soil for the benefit of all three.
• As the beans grow through the tangle of squash vines and wind their way up the cornstalks into the sunlight, they hold the sisters close together.
• The large leaves of the sprawling squash protect the threesome by creating living mulch that shades the soil, keeping it cool and moist and preventing weeds.
• The prickly squash leaves also keep away raccoons and other small animals, who don’t like to step on them

Mostly, the deer and rabbits left our garden alone last year.

We are also adding a sunflower garden to the farm this year, and turning a section of lawn into a natural grass/sunflower growth. Maria re-planted the Dahlia garden as well.

A reminder that our Spring Open House is coming up the weekend of June 10-22, ll a.m. to 4 p.m. both days. I will herd sheep with Red and Fate,  read and sign from my new book “Talking To Animals.”

Maria has another great art show planned, more than a half dozen talented artists selling affordable art, including her own potholders and hanging pieces.

Ed Gulley is coming with a young and friendly calf, there will be some poetry reading, some talks, donkey visits and good feeling. You can follow the details on Maria’s blog, on the events page.

We don’t promote the Open  Houses anywhere but on our blogs, and the Open Houses have taken a soft and comfortable tone, they are more of a family re-union than anything, intimate and low-key, but the art is increasingly popular and central to the weekend. We have lots of fun. Ken Norman will also becoming on June 10 to trim the donkey’s hooves.

Please, no dogs. thanks.