Summer

nce summer sets in, the harvest goes into full swing. From late June to September, you can pick green beans, tomatoes, corn, zucchini, cucumbers, and much more. In fact, depending on what and how much you’ve planted, you could gather an abundance nearly every day of the week. Of course, as the vegetables reach their peak so, too, do the pests. In this section, I’ll not only share tips for growing the season’s most delicious and nutritious crops, but also natural ways to keep unwanted insects at bay. And for days when you can’t abide standing over a hot stove in the kitchen, find my tips for creating salads that are far from ordinary, along with recipes for a host of great summertime dishes.

Garden Siblings: Meet the Three Sisters

o me, nothing beats the taste of sweet corn from the garden—although juicy homegrown tomatoes are a close runner-up. If you’d like to grow corn, you may want to consider sowing it next to beans and squash, a Native American companion planting method. This proved so successful for those who employed it, the trio became known as the “Three Sisters.”

I’m highlighting these three garden vegetables out of the hundreds available because native wisdom, honed through millennia, is an excellent resource to let us know what’s best to grow in this country for yield, taste, and nutrition.

The Iroquois are said to have begun using this dynamic cropping technique three centuries before European settlers arrived in North America. According to legend, the plants were always to be grown, eaten, and celebrated together. These three crops sustained the Iroquois both physically and spiritually. Although grown in the summer, the vegetables were typically dried and saved for use in the winter.

How exactly do these siblings help each other?

Corn is planted first, making it the “oldest sister.” As eldest siblings should, it lends support—in this case, to the bean plants as they begin to grow, providing a living trellis on which the vines can climb.

Beans benefit all three crops, as they “fix” or pull nitrogen, a powerful plant growth stimulator, from the air into the soil. What’s more, as the beans wend their way through the squash vines and up the cornstalks to reach the sunlight, they hold the three sisters close together. And, they help stabilize the tall corn stalks during heavy winds.

Squash produces sprawling leaves that help protect its siblings by shading the ground, keeping it cool and moist and preventing the growth of weeds.

Selecting Your Sisters

Before you plant, there are a few things you’ll want to consider when choosing which varieties of these three crops to grow.

• Think tall when it comes to corn varieties so that your beans have ample room to climb. Some types are shorter and mature more quickly. They are ideal for conserving water and yielding earlier harvests, but don’t provide the tall supports that beans need.

• Pick pole beans as opposed to bush beans. There are many different cultivars of pole beans, including green beans, wax beans, limas, and those commonly dried for storage; you can choose based on your taste, interest, and climate. For example, here in the desert Southwest, many choose to grow tepary beans, as they thrive in extreme heat with relatively little water. The key here is that pole beans are vining plants that will grow up and climb on the corn, whereas bush types will grow out and stay closer to the ground.

• Base squash on your space. The Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences recommends pumpkin for a Three Sisters garden. I tend to agree, because it’s so nutritious and because it and other thick-skinned winter squashes such as butternut and acorn can be stored for months—keeping you well fed once the summer harvest has slowed. Winter squash varieties can grow vines up to 15 feet long, so ensure you have adequate space for them to sprawl and plant only a couple around your hills (see at right). If you’re working with a smaller space, consider planting more compact summer squash varieties.

Family Planting

While there is a variety of possible crop configurations for the trio, the traditional approach involves sowing seeds for all three plants on an elevated mound or hill in order to promote needed soil drainage. Seeds should be planted in late spring through early summer. Here are three simple steps for getting your Three Sisters garden growing.

1. Make your mounds. Select your space, which should receive full sun for at least six hours per day, and work in a generous amount of compost (see pages 20-22) to increase fertility. Use a hoe or shovel to form low, flattopped mounds or hills. Dimensions can vary, but as a general guideline, use the four by four rule: about four inches high and roughly four feet wide. They can be taller, but try to keep them under a foot high. Mounds should be between three and five feet apart from each other, measured from their centers. To further help conserve water, make small craters at the top of your mounds so that the water doesn’t drain away from the plants quickly.

2. Sow your corn seeds first. When the danger of frost has passed, plant four to six kernels of corn in the center of each mound, six to 10 inches apart and about an inch or so deep, to form a square.

3. Follow-up with beans and squash. Once the corn is around four to five inches tall, it’s time to plant its sisters. Sow four bean seeds evenly spaced around each corn stalk, about halfway down the sides of the mound but close enough to climb the corn, also around one-inch deep. Then, about a week later once the beans have emerged, plant your squash around the perimeter of each hill surrounding the beans and corn. How many you plant will depend on the variety or varieties you choose and how long their vines grow, as discussed above. Suggestions range between two and six seeds. You’ll want to train the squash to vine outward from the mound and not crowd the corn and beans.

An array of detailed planting charts can be found through a “Three Sisters” Google search online, along with much more in-depth information about the specifics of planting by this method. But I hope this quick guide will get you started.

A Balanced Diet

As mentioned earlier, the Three Sisters provided a healthy diet for the Iroquois for centuries. Indeed, meals consisting of corn, beans, and squash are complete and balanced, and every bit as nutritious for modern gardeners.

Corn: When you eat fresh corn on or off the cob, you get fiber along with niacin, phosphorous, potassium, and vitamin A, as well as starch and protein.

Beans: Beans are low in calories and high in fiber, vitamin A and vitamin C, calcium, and iron. Dried kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, or garbanzo beans are high-fiber, high-protein foods. Just one cup of cooked kidney beans gives you 45 and 31 percent of the Daily Value of fiber and protein, respectively, as well as 42 percent of the Daily Value of manganese, a mineral essential for energy production and antioxidant protection. The carbohydrate in beans is slowdigesting, meaning low on the glycemic load scale.

Squash: A cup of cooked pumpkin is rich in beta-carotene and also gives you some calcium, magnesium, vitamin C, niacin, folate (vitamin B9), and vitamin E. In general, winter squash provides calcium; potassium; vitamins A and C; iron; phosphorus; and high-quality, low-glycemic-load carbohydrate. Summer squash is less nutritionally rich but still boasts fair amounts of carotenes, potassium, and vitamin C.