On Sun, 18 May 2003 09:43:07 +0100, "Drakanthus"
wrote:

~ You can grow other
~ crops between the sweetcorn plants to make the most of the space that
~ you have. I have successfully grown french beans this way but haven't
~ tried any of the other crops that I've seen recommended, such as
~ pumpkins, spinach, lettuce, etc.
~ --
~ Stuart Baldwin
~
~
~That sounds like a good idea. I'm always desperate for space. At the moment
~we are eating cabbages every day to make room to plant the sweetcorn, which
~are all in 6" pots on the yard at the moment. I'll try growing some spinach
~between the sweetcorn this year.

There's an old Native American technique called three sisters: They would
grow the corn, train nitrogen-fixing climbing beans up them (special
varieties which don't mind the extra shade and are picked dry: try
VidaVerde, who have some of these cornfield beans
http://www.vidaverde.co.uk/frenchbeans.html and see note at bottom) and
grew trailing squashes underneath as a mulch and for winter food. Putting
"three sisters corn squash bean" into Google will throw up a lot of pages.

I'm hoping to try a two sisters approach, simply cos I can't work out where
else to plant my trailing marrows and my beans are conventional full-sun
climbers (Cobra and Enorma). They are going to share canes with the sweet
peas for extra bee attraction. :-)

On the sweetcorn side, last year I grew minipop cos I love mini sweetcorn
and I got about 60% germination of the seed inside the conservatory. This
year, after getting a £10 heated propagator from B&Q (same as the £16 one
but without the seed trays and capillary matting so much better value!) and
some roottrainers, I've got 100% germination with Ovation (supersweet) and
in the three (!) days since I planted the Minipop, 7/12 appeared over last
night. So I definitely recommend bottom heat!


--
jane

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone,
you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Mark Twain

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