sweet corn advice for the spring.

[Jungle Jane]

They must’ve had different corn seeds back then,sowing three seeds & discarding the weaker two would be such a waste of expensive seed,I plant out everything but start them off in pots to let them get a good start in life,around 30cm - 45cm spacing. The thing with looking at books from years ago.how do we really know how the normal gardener got on with this method,maybe there were problems & years later advice changed & now alot of us do the wider spacing. You can fit plants in the gaps like squash,bean & melon plants giving shade over the corn roots & giving more produce per square meter,the three sisters method is old & excellent. Weeds will just grow there otherwise

[annie8]

I probably do a bit less than 45cm but more like 35cm. Am going to try them in bed with squash and pumpkin this year. See how that works.

[wargarden2023]

Jungle Jane the orginal 3 sister method uses field corn not sweet corn.
I have not seen anyone in uk grow three sisters with proper varieties
and spacing. just people getting mess who tried it; with exception of
a modified version mentioned by by Joy Larkcom. in her book "Just
Vegetating: A Memoir"

[ameno]

The three sisters method indeed will not work with modern corn varieties. Which Gardening have tried it twice before, and gotten very poor results.
Growing squash or pumpkin in between corn plants works fairly well. The problem is the beans. Old field maize varieties grow to some 8 or 9 feet tall, and so are tall and sturdy enough to support climbing bean plants. Modern sweetcorn varieties, especially early varieties, grow to about 6 feet, maybe 6'6", and are less sturdy. They just get smothered by the beans.
There's also the problem of getting to the cobs to pick them when they're all tangled up with beans. This wasn't a problem with the original three sisters method, as they were growing maize for grinding into flour, and beans for drying. They could just leave it all until it went brown. But if you're growing sweetcorn, that's another matter, and if the beans are green beans rather than beans for drying then it's even worse.

As for sweetcorn spacing, I usually grow mine at about 30cm apart, sometimes a little less.

[annie8]

That’s really interesting I had seen a few articles about people trying it and it not working. Makes sense. I am not a fan of climbing beans so wouldn’t be trying that part of it thankfully.

[Jungle Jane]

Jungle Jane the orginal 3 sister method uses field corn not sweet corn.
I have not seen anyone in uk grow three sisters with proper varieties
and spacing. just people getting mess who tried it; with exception of
a modified version mentioned by by Joy Larkcom. in her book "Just
Vegetating: A Memoir"

I plant runner beans between my sweetcorn but they don’t climb the corn,they climb a three stick teepee,when the bean climbed the corn once,it was to tight for the corn but using bamboo sticks it doesn’t interrupt the corn when it starts bulging. Squash plants fit in the sweetcorn gaps,I do both every year,it’s all three plant types within the same square. Same as three sisters really.