Rewilding My Lot

The Three Sisters project has been an interesting one, although it is clear that I don’t have the dedication needed to be a good vegetable gardener. The mounds have been watered every day, although probably not enough, and perhaps I have not been vigilant enough to defend them from pests.

Nevertheless, growth is still happening and here’s the current situation (late July 2024):

There is a clear gradient of health between the five mounds, with the best near the house, which is at the east end of the row. Perhaps the house is providing a little more shade to those end mounds. Under my conditions, there has been no noticeable benefit from burying dead fish in mounds two and four (for fertilizer).

There is some fairly vigorous bean plant growth and plenty of flowers, but no beans that I can see. I wonder if pollination has been poor, or perhaps beans will come later. I have even seen hummingbirds visit the bean flowers, which I would not have expected.

I have been able to harvest about a dozen yellow squash in total over the past few weeks. However, damage to the plants suggest that I might have had squash vine borers. I did see one of those last year.

All of the corn plants have been dead for a while, so I cut down and composted any that were not helping to hold up bean plants. That leaves the mounds a little tidier, and I’ll continue to water and watch for more harvest.