Who knew the Three Sisters method of planting corn, beans, and squash would get so much press all of the sudden? From community education gardens to the White House, everybody and his dog is planting a Three Sisters garden.

How can I put a new spin on it that will make throwing my hat into the ring noteworthy?

Mine is 99% destined to be a complete failure.

Why? I’m doing it ALL WRONG:

Not enough sunlight
I’ve run out of sunny spots and the place I planted my 3 sisters gets too much shade.

Wrong soil
I used incompletely composted compost in one bed and a manure-heavy blend of store compost and topsoil in the other because I ran out of homemade soil and the guy at the home center gave me the wrong bags. I don’t like taking things back, especially heavy dirty things (ooh–bad band name).

Shallow beds
The raised beds only have a few inches of worked soil in them before they hit untilled yard. Laziness.

Too little corn
I probably have too little corn to ensure good pollination.

Why am I doing this even though I know it won’t work? I can’t help myself. And my garden buddy/enabler didn’t lift a paw to stop me.

Apathy.

My name is TL and I am a gardenaholic.

Sad updates on the (lack of) progress to follow.

Ever do things you know aren’t going to work but you do them anyway?

P.S. Update since this post was first written–the bed with homemade compost is actually doing pretty well so far. The corn in it is twice as tall as the corn in the other bed. I’m waiting for the squash borers to find my pumpkins, though.