Three Sisters in the Garden--A Lesson On The Value of Sisterhood from the Garden

    It was an unlikely place for a free garden class.  A theater.  I’d been in this small dark theater a few times before to see a few quirky, sophisticated plays, but tonight I was there to learn the basics of organic gardening at high altitude. Living in the mountains at 7,000 ft. elevation gives an entirely different dimension to gardening, and I was there as an eager student excited to learn about this seemingly secret world.  

    My teacher, a diminutive dentist by profession, excitedly told us about his thriving summer vegetable garden.  Vividly describing his multi-colored heirloom tomatoes, fragrant herbs, and other unusual vegetables grown from seed, his passion for this unknown world to me began to unfold.  He waxed about ways to keep fragile, tender plants alive at high altitude during monsoon rains, wind storms, and unusually short growing seasons.  His excitement was quickly contagious and before long I was imagining my wooded, undeveloped backyard as a luscious vegetable garden.  Just about the time my imagination was taking me right out of the room he turned to the gardeners in the audience and began to question them.    

    “So, how do you grow your corn plants?” he asked one of the students, peering over his retro looking glasses.  

    “The three sisters,” she quickly replied.  He nodded.  In fact just about everyone in the class nodded with knowing looks.  Although I tried to give a knowing look to fit in, the truth was I had no idea what the three sisters were.

    Again, a question came up about growing beans.  Once again the three sisters was mentioned.  Hummmm…..this time I wrote the phrase down, determined to find out what everyone in the class seemed to know but me, and just exactly what this three sisters was all about.    

    More questions, this time about squash.  Ditto squash; the three sisters were mentioned once again for squash.  Okay, I was really intrigued at this point.  Was this some kind of fertilizer, a type of container,  a way of arranging seeds in the ground?  What exactly were they talking about?  

    Once inside my front door I dashed to the computer and typed those three magic words into the search engine.  The. Three. Sisters.  Voila.  Lots of answers and information popped onto the screen and I read with curious delight.

    Used by the Native Americans for centuries, the three sisters is a very old method of planting corn, beans, and squash together to provide a better crop from each plant than they would provide alone. Working together they help one another maximize growth and contribute to one another in fascinating ways.  

    It works like this.  The first sister is corn.  Corn is a large, strong plant with a tall sturdy stalk that enables it to hold its heavy ears of corn as they grow. As a large plant though it needs lots of energy, especially nitrogen, from the soil. Corn is called a heavy feeder, and much like a linebacker would need lots of calories while training and playing in season, corn needs lots of nutrients to do its work as well.  Grown alone it requires a lot of feeding and attention to produce its fruit, corn. In some ways it’s a rather high maintenance plant.   

    However, beans, the second sister, are a lanky vine plant that needs a ladder or trellis for support to provide its best crop.  Without some kind of ladder for support, these vines fall on the ground and ultimately never produce as many beans as they do when supported.  However, in contrast with the corn’s high nitrogen needs, beans actually fix nitrogen into the soil.  In an amazing way, they actually add the very nutrient that their sister, corn, needs so heavily.  So, when beans are planted next to corn they use the corn stalks for their support, winding their fragile vines around corn’s sturdy stalk, yet underground, they are supporting the corn, by adding extra nitrogen for the corn to feed on.  Thus they work together like loving sisters--each contributing and leaning on the other for each plant’s benefit.  

    But the love keeps growing among these sisters when you throw in a squash plant.  As the third sister, squash adds yet another dimension to maximize these three crops.   Squash, with their enormous leaves and large yellow blossoms., fan out and hover near the ground.  As they grow and sprawl they shade the ground beneath them, keeping it moist, and when planted at the base of both beans and corn they provide a shade cloth of sorts for all three plants.  As an added bonus, their lush yellow flowers also attract pollinators every fruit bearing plant in the garden so desperately needs.

    The three sisters--corn, beans, and squash.  Three very different plants with three very different designs, but when planted together help each other grow and become more fruitful than when planted alone.  Such a beautiful picture of God’s design for us and the world.

So, Who Are Your Sisters?

     Reflecting on the three sisters has led me to examine the sisters in my garden. Who quietly feeds me underground?  Who do I lean on?  And who gives me shade? Do I reciprocate, or do I stand proudly alone imagining my solitary existence a badge of honor and self importance?

     The truth is that far too often I stumbled through life trying to do everything myself, failing to recognize how much I needed other people in my life to feed, nourish, and support me.  I mistakenly thought that doing it all by myself showed my strength and valor, maybe even, gulp, my superiority.  Reluctant to ask for help, let alone acknowledge I desperately needed help, I floundered, but worked very hard to cover it up with a mask of bold independence and self-sufficiency.  

     At the same time, while I often did do things for others, I never saw it as God’s beautiful design for blissful reciprocity.  Giving was less about being part of a team, and more about my inflated sense of self and and grandiosity  Something along the lines of big me giving to little you. An vain lie if ever there was one.
Ultimately, what was the price for growing my individual plant alone in the garden?  Smaller fruit.  A stressed plant.  And a plant missing out on the beautiful, natural design created not only for my benefit, but for the benefit of all the plants in the garden.   

     Here’s the truth-- we were designed by our Creator both to contribute and to need one another in order to grow and perform optimally in this world. .  Each of us is a unique sister in the garden of life,  and we are most fruitful when we joyfully and expectantly live together, giving and taking the best from one another, yielding a more bountiful and beautiful harvest in the end.