By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. — A tiny garden growing in front of the Whitley County Agricultural Museum and 4-H Learning Center boasted a modest sign that proclaimed it a “Three Sisters Garden.”

Closer scrutiny revealed the small plot contained only three crops – corn, beans and squash – foods that, according to Iroquois legend, are the three inseparable sisters, precious gifts from the Great Spirit. Among the first crops domesticated in this hemisphere, the three grow well together and form the basis of a well-balanced diet – corn for carbohydrates, beans for protein and squash for a balance of vitamins.

According to the Three Sisters legend, corn must grow in community with other crops rather than on its own. In return, it provides a natural pole for beans to climb. According to a website published by Renee’s Garden, which markets Three Sisters Garden seed packets, beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving overall fertility by providing nitrogen to the following year’s corn.

Bean vines stabilize corn plants, making them less vulnerable to the wind, while shallow-rooted squash vines become living mulch, shading emerging weeds and preventing soil moisture from evaporating.

While Native Americans lacked packaged seeds, they kept this system in practice for centuries. The Pilgrims would not have survived without the Three Sisters. They quickly accepted the three foods into their diets without the ceremonies the Iroquois invoked, and without the belief that one of the three sisters’ spirits watched over each of the vegetables.

The tiny garden, with corn hills planted close together to ensure adequate pollination, followed by pole beans instead of the bush variety, had squash vines trailing through it to remind today’s nutrition-conscious consumers of three basic foods often overlooked.