Wednesday in the Garden

Graphic from USDA

Two items of discussion were on the forefront in the garden on this beautiful spring day—garden rotation schedules and the “Three Sisters.”

The nucleus of the garden rotation schedule we have developed and use at the VegHeadz Garden was obtained from a number of sources and there are many online. Just google garden crop rotation schedules. The trouble is, almost all of them are for more temperate areas and they only have one growing season. So using them as a basis, we had to expand the idea to account for a second season. Many of the rotation schedules are just divided up into four categories—fruit, roots, leaves, and legumes. Ours does much the same, except we have summer legumes and winter legumes which made it necessary to be careful about rotation order to take advantage of nitrogen fixing by the legumes and to use it where it’s most needed.  Another consideration was making sure we didn’t plant small seeds soon after harvesting sweet potatoes due to the allelopathic chemicals left by the sweet potatoes which reduce germination.  

Of course nothing is perfect and some things don’t fit neatly into categories. We have changed the rotation order on the schedule on a number of occasions as gardeners noticed discrepancies or better ways of organizing the rotation so we could achieve our goal which  is to get it as functionally and beneficially as good as possible. 

The current version is available in two forms under resources in the left side bar. We hope you’ll consider using a rotation schedule in your garden.  Planting the same crops, or even crops of the same family, in the same place year after year will increase diseases and pest pressure.  

The Three Sisters   — the planting of corn, beans and squash together, is an item of perennial interest in our garden, and to many gardeners. We have tried it on a number of occasions with limited success. An IFAS article contains much useful and historical information.   Of particular note is the third reference at the bottom of that article which refers to a detailed publication from Cornell University about the Three Sisters.  It is meant as a teaching tool for children ages 9 to 12, and would be great to use in conjunction 4-H or  a school garden.  It also contains a very detailed description of how to plant the Three Sisters as the Iroquois Indians did. We’re going to try it this year. The Cornell publication is available here: 

https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cornell.edu/dist/c/10116/files/newlogoThree-Sisters-Exploring-an-Iroquois-Garden1-199h8hj-xupent.pdf