I’ve decided that this is the year I’m trying my hand at planting the three sisters, a historic symbiotic garden featuring corn, beans, and squash. I have a handy patch of ground where I made the murder compost last year that’s pretty sunny, and I think it’ll be good great place to stick my new vegetable garden.

I’ve been slow at prepping this area because it has basically become a dumping ground for any number of old projects. Somewhere toward the bottom of the pile is a mix of dirt and compost. I have a stack of dry leaves and branches on top of that. And partially buried at the back are some wire cages, not to mention other random materials, and some fabric planters that didn’t work out in my front yard.

Cleaning up the dumping ground is only part of the problem, because underneath all that stuff is rock hard clay.

I volunteered the spouse to dig this up using a pickaxe, and came back a little later to find out that he was having to dig through a sheet of black plastic and a layer of volcanic rock under the surface of clay that I knew about. He’s basically excavating some twenty year old abandoned landscaping. I’m not too concerned about the lava rock. In theory, it’ll just contribute a little bit of drainage and breathing room, but the black plastic has to go.

This area is too big to try to get all that plastic out in one afternoon, so what we ended up doing was digging two big pits for two separate three sisters gardens. I originally wanted to make three gardens, seeding them out a couple weeks apart so that I’ll be able to have corn through the whole summer, but I took pity on the spouse who was only expecting to dig one pit, and graciously carved out the second while I got started improving the soil in the first pit.

From my reading, it seems like clay isn’t the greatest soil for the three sisters. Corn has a shallow root system and I don’t think it’s great for breaking up clay. Plus corn needs a lot of nutrients and moisture, and although Clay is full of minerals, it doesn’t absorb water very well and when it does, it tends to get waterlogged. I need my garden beds to drain, retain moisture, and release nutrients to my plants. And if I can do that with stuff I have around the house, all the better.

Several of my pea plants from the great pea test we’re beginning to develop brown spots, so I harvested the edible bits and threw the rest into the bottom of the first pit. It is supposed to act as a slow-release nitrogen as it biodegrades.

In the second pit, I cut up a bunch of leftover parts from a big weeding project, and threw them in. These parts are roots and seeds that I wouldn’t use as top mulch because I’d end up getting more weeds very quickly. But the pits are over 8 inches deep, and there’s no way these seeds can sprout from that deep. If on the off chance these sprout somehow (i’m like 99.9% sure they can’t), I’m not really in a worse position because these are weed seeds that blow in every year anyway, and every year I have to pull them. They can do something helpful for a change and contribute nitrogen to my garden.

Grass can get matted down easily when it’s wet, so I also threw in a layer of vermiculite from a bag I had laying around. Its very porous, and helps with drainage.

To help my gardens absorb and hold water, I raided a couple of failed planter boxes that I had around the house. These were probably full of planting mix, maybe potting mix. That stuff is mostly sphagnum moss with a little perlite mixed in. It’s great for moisture retention and breathing room, and I had a ton of the stuff. So I carted it over and mixed half native clay and 1/2 planting mix into the pits that the spouse dug. I had to mark the edge with bits of rocks and broken concrete because it’s tough to tell where the veggie bed ends and the clay/volcanic rock/black plastic underlay begin.

At least half of the clay had to come out of the pits to make room for all of the old planting mix, so I mixed the extra clay with half planting mix into one of the fabric planters I had handy nearby. Not entirely sure what I’ll do with that planter yet. Maybe a flower box. It’s pretty deep, so I might grow carrots or potatoes in it in the fall. Shoot! I just realized it’ll be in the shade in fall. Ugh. No one wants to move this thing.

My second volunteer spouse project was to trim a nearby elderberry tree that was rubbing up against the house. I also got started running the branches and leaves through my electric wood chipper, and threw the mulched bits on top of my new-prepared garden beds. I didn’t get enough mulch for weed suppression, but these will break down and add a little nitrogen, and might help shade the soil a bit so it won’t dry out as quickly as if it were naked.

Next step: soaking and planting corn!