This is my understanding too. After the plant dies it can release that nitrogen. While the legume grows, the benefit of nitrogen is negligible and negated by the fact that the legume is competing in the ground for water and other nutrients. The Three Sisters is a nice idea but there is a reason it’s not common practice. See also ‘companion planting’, the astrology of gardening. What plants want most is room to grow roots.
The best thing to do with legumes is till them under before they go to seed, or add them to compost.
Somethin to keep in mind is that it’s a labor intensive harvest and the products aren’t really what we’d want to market. You’d wait until the whole lot of them kind of dies down and harvest winter squash, dry beans, and flint corn then till the remainder back into the soil.
It’s not bad for substinence farming, but you’re not going to get the yields or reasonable market prices with those crops.
This is my understanding too. After the plant dies it can release that nitrogen. While the legume grows, the benefit of nitrogen is negligible and negated by the fact that the legume is competing in the ground for water and other nutrients. The Three Sisters is a nice idea but there is a reason it’s not common practice. See also ‘companion planting’, the astrology of gardening. What plants want most is room to grow roots.
The best thing to do with legumes is till them under before they go to seed, or add them to compost.
Somethin to keep in mind is that it’s a labor intensive harvest and the products aren’t really what we’d want to market. You’d wait until the whole lot of them kind of dies down and harvest winter squash, dry beans, and flint corn then till the remainder back into the soil.
It’s not bad for substinence farming, but you’re not going to get the yields or reasonable market prices with those crops.