[Terrapreta] Three Sisters

[lou gold]

As an added note, I believe that the three sisters in Amazonia *might* be
corn, beans and manoic. Interestingly, on some traditional farms in the
cerrado I have seen corn, rice and squash as companions. I have no expert
view here so please treat this information lightly.

lou

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 10:44 AM, code suidae <codesuidae at gmail.com> wrote:

> It is curious to check my email and find a message so directly related
> to something I've just done over the weekend. Since the threat of
> freezing has past now and since I had some free time, I planted a
> little corn this weekend (36 plants). It is in a three sisters
> configuration as used by the native American population that inhabited
> this area. I've also prepared some some soil with pulverized char for
> a second crop, which will go in in a few weeks (so I'll have fresh
> corn at different times through the season).
>
> This is sweet corn, so I won't be processing it with lye water as you
> described, although I am aware of and intend to attempt that at some
> point, perhaps next year I will find some more native corn types to
> experiment with.
>
> I've found a few pages related to the three sisters that provide some
> more details about the methods developed by the native American
> population. One described a circular plot about 10 feet in diameter
> with a number of mounds (8?) into which the corn, beans and squash
> were planted. Sunflowers could be planted along the north edge of the
> plot where they would not shade the other plants.
>
> Unfortunately I have been unable to find that page again, which is
> unfortunate, it had what appeared to be a fairly complete set of
> documentation about the historical practices.
>
> Dave
> --
> "Our ignorance is not so vast as our failure to use what we know." -
> M. King Hubbert
>
> On Sun, Apr 20, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Jeff Davis <jeff0124 at velocity.net> wrote:
> >
> >  <http://www.uwlax.edu/MVAC/Research/ThreeSisters.htm>
> >
> >  Snip:
> >  "Merlin Red Cloud Jr. provided a recipe for processing corn that
> >  involved several interesting treatments of corn.  Of most significance
> >  was the addition of wood ash when boiling shelled corn, creating
> hominy.
>
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