September 9, 2012 · 6:46 AM

The Three Sisters

The Three Sisters is a name given to the three basic crops by Native Americans: beans, corn, and squash.

They would plant them together in mounds and each plant would add a positive element to the group. The corn provided a structure for the beans to climb. The beans provide nitrogen to improve the soil. The squash would spread along the ground and prevent weeds, cool the soil, and reduce the need for water. The native Americans of the Northeast would also bury fish or eels in the mounds as fertilizer.

Nutritionally, they complement each other, too. Corn lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan which are needed by the human body to make complete proteins and niacin but beans contain both so the beans and corn together make a balanced diet.

Native Americans of the Southwest are known to add a forth sister: Cleome. Cleome or Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, attracts bees to help pollinate the beans and squash (corn is wind pollinated).

The Three Sisters planting method is featured on the reverse of the 2009 US Sacagawea Native American dollar coin.

20120909-064502.jpg

Pumpkin: a winter squash.

1 Comment

Filed under Plants, Vegetables

Tagged as

August 29, 2012 · 1:13 PM

More Fall blooming plants

As the weather cools into Autumn, more Fall blooming plants are putting on a show!

Autumn Clematis

20120829-130608.jpg

20120829-130656.jpg

This one is on the mailbox. After it blooms I cut it back to only a main vine of about three feet. It grows back slowly during the winter and then in the spring takes off and covers any thing near.

After it blooms, it is covered with silvery seed heads. It reseeds easily and volunteers come up around the yard. It’s a great evergreen native vine.

Annual Poinsettia

A favorite fall blooming annual, that was collected as seeds by my grandmother in the 70s from a relative’s house on Ocracoke Island, is annual poinsettia. She grew them in her yard in Beaufort, NC. I brought the seed to my parent’s house in Morehead City and then to various gardens where I lived in Greenville during college and, finally, to my garden in Raleigh.

They can become weedy as they tend to reseed. The tops turn red in the Fall just like the Christmas poinsettia and they grow to a height of about three feet with several branches.

20120829-141555.jpg

Leave a comment

Filed under Plants

Tagged as ,

August 21, 2012 · 2:34 PM

Garden spiders

Several of the yellow and black garden spiders have built webs in the garden. I have always called them ‘yellow and black garden spider’s. They are actually called Black and Yellow Argiope (Argiope autantia). It’s in the orb spider family which build spiral webs about two feet across.

20120821-142848.jpg

The one above is near the lamp post and she is very large – at least 6 inches. The picture is out of focus because she is so large I am frightened to get too close to her.  She is in a good location as the lamps are on all night and I am sure she is well fed by the moths and various bugs that are attracted to the light.

I think they are beautiful but all spiders creap me out of me!

The dense zigzag of silk in the middle of the web is known as a stabilimentum and is thought to either stabilize the web or help camouflage the spider who rest on the web. The male supposedly builds a smaller web near the female but I have never seen two near each other.

20120821-143405.jpg

This smaller spider is against the chimney over a passionflower. He is only about four inches from top to bottom.

Leave a comment

Filed under Pest