{"id":5037,"date":"2004-01-22T07:20:39","date_gmt":"2004-01-22T15:20:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/blog\/2004\/01\/22\/5037\/"},"modified":"2004-01-22T07:20:39","modified_gmt":"2004-01-22T15:20:39","slug":"companion-planting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/?p=5037","title":{"rendered":"Companion Planting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am still interested in agricultural trends\/innovations by way of what I read in the book on the <a href=\"http:\/\/grameen-info.org\/\">Grameen Bank<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>One I intend to try this year is known as the &#8220;three sisters&#8221; method- planting three specific vegetables together to improve efficiency:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<lI>build flat-topped mounds of  soil for each &#8220;cluster&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>plant several corn seeds close  together, in the very center<\/li>\n<li>when the corn is 6 inches tall, plant beans and squash around the corn, alternating between beans and squash<\/li>\n<li>The plants grow together in a single group:\n<ul>\n<li>The corn provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles<\/li>\n<li>The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants remove<\/li>\n<li>The squash spreads along the ground, monopolizing the sunlight to prevent weeds<\/li>\n<li>The squash also acts as a &#8220;living mulch,&#8221; creating a microclimate to retain moisture in the soil<\/lI>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p \/>\n<p>The Iroquois used this technique&#8230;  I am looking for other techniques to cut down on labor and improve the amount of nutrition for a given size of land.<\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p>But wait there&#8217;s more-  closely connected to this idea is &#8220;biointensive farming&#8221;-   using closely-planted crops to create microclimates, as well as reduce erosion.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><lI>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardengatemagazine.com\/tips\/27tip3.html\">Growing &#8220;The Three Sisters&#8221;:<br \/>\nCorn, Beans, and Squash<\/a> article has some good drawings to quickly demonstrate what this looks like.  From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gardengatemagazine.com\">Garden Gate<\/a> magazine.<\/li>\n<li>More on &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bagelhole.org\/article.php\/Food\/270\/\">Companion Planting<\/a>&#8220;- extending beyond the Three Sisters.  For example growing chives near carrots to improve the carrots&#8217; flavor!<\/li>\n<li>Pinning down the politics of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.minifarms.com\/\">Minifarms<\/a> is tricky but in the end moot.  They have articles on Raised Bed Agriculture (&#8220;RBA&#8221;) and biointensive farming.  They talk about &#8220;growing soil&#8221;- choosing crops to improve the quality of the soil with every crop.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/zzyx.ucsc.edu\/casfs\/training\/manual\/index.html\">The Center for Agroecology &#038; Sustainable Food Systems<\/a> is a research, education, and public service program at the University of California, Santa Cruz, dedicated to increasing ecological sustainability and social justice in the food and agriculture system.&#8221;  Here is their downloadable <a href=\"http:\/\/zzyx.ucsc.edu\/casfs\/training\/manual\/contents.html\">resources for teachers<\/a>.  I seriously wish I had a class like this at Berkeley, instead of &#8220;American Environmental Cultural History&#8221; which was largely mewling bunk.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am still interested in agricultural trends\/innovations by way of what I read in the book on the Grameen Bank. One I intend to try this year is known as the &#8220;three sisters&#8221; method- planting three specific vegetables together to improve efficiency: build flat-topped mounds of soil for each &#8220;cluster&#8221; plant several corn seeds close [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-looky"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ikillspies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}