It's not an actual drainfield if that's what you mean... we apparently have a holding tank or an overflow tank above the actual septic tank and that was where I was thinking. It leaks or overflows or something to send more nutrients downslope. All I know is there is no drainfield there, but the grass grows faster than everywhere else in the yard. Or is the septic runoff itself the problem? I can search the forum tomorrow when I have more time... just wondering what the issues are. So, am I reading correctly that if I plant two types together, this season's corn may not develop true to type? The sweet corn (golden bantam) is 83 days and the popcorn (SA yellow) is 105-115 days. Does this mean the sweet corn is likely to pollinate earlier than the popcorn? Would it be reasonable to stagger the planting more to make sure the popcorn pollinates later? My growing season is 170 days, so I should have time, right? I am doing some SFG, but not entirely... I give my tomatoes a little more room, I give my broccoli and cauliflower more room, etc. Beans and peas are easier to set up in a long row for trellising, so that's what I do. I don't try to squeeze my zucchini into a square foot, but I do stake them (makes dealing with powdery leaf mildew much easier), so they don't take up nearly as much room as they would if I just let them grow on the ground. Basically, if it works well in a SFG set up, I'll do it... otherwise, I do what works best for the plant - but I don't have a large plot set up for rows. I'm mostly working in my expanded front flower beds, former weed beds along the sides of the house, and this year expanding into my hilly back yard (for large things that don't work in a SFG). Slopes? We live outside of Pittsburgh, so flat ground is an uncommon find. We have steep slopes and slight slopes, I have no idea of actual % grade. Good for sledding, not great for teaching a young child to ride a bike, lol.

Bon, With regard to your specific questions: I am assuming that when you use the term squash you mean winter squash since it is vining and most summer squash plants are more bush-like. Corn and beans perform best when planted early enough in spring that heat doesn't negatively impact pollination. I try to have all my corn harvested before the end of July, and I generally don't plant a succession crop of sweet corn for fall because of the heat. When I do plant fall corn, it is planted in a new area. Three Sisters gardens do not lend themselves well to succession planting once they are growing because you have to disturb the roots of the existing plants in order to plant a succession crop. You may or may not find that the Three Sisters garden remains standing in high winds. In my experience, without a windbreak (and sometimes even with a windbreak), the corn is more likely to be brought down by the wind, not less likely, because the weight of the bean vines tend to bring down corn stalks even in the absence of wind unless you plant a really, really sturdy corn variety that has huge, strong stalks and gets really tall. If the wind blows the corn plants over onto the top of the squash plants, it is almost impossible to straighten up the tangled mess of bean vine-covered corn plants, and your squash plants will be damaged by the corn and beans being blown down on top of them. Often it breaks the leaves. You also likely will walk on and break your squash vines while attempting to straighten up your corn plants. If okra is to be planted in your Three Sisters Garden as a fourth sister, it needs to be planted far away enough from everything else and especially the winter squash plants that you can harvest okra every day or every other day without trampling any of your three or four sisters. The marigolds likely will be shaded out by the squash plants which always get huge and run everywhere, including into places where you don't want winter squash. I have had winter squash and pumpkin plants (pumpkins, for the record, are winter squash) run from one side of the garden to another, burying every other plant in their path. I try to plant them near the garden fence and mostly train them to grow outside into the pasture beyond the fence instead of into other areas where I don't want them. I have a love-hate relationship with marigolds. I love way they look, but in my garden they are spider mite magnets so I use them as a trap crop, letting them grow until they have a heavy infestation of spider mites, and then I pull up the plants, put them in a trash bag, tie it closed and put it into a trash can with a lid. I don't want any of those spider mites escaping before the trash is hauled away. I generally get better results planting short cosmos like Cosmic Orange or Cosmic Yellow instead of marigolds. They attract the beneficial insects and are not as prone to get spider mites. I have grown some form of a Three Sisters Garden almost every year (this is my 14th spring garden here, or 15 if you count the little one I planted before we even broke ground for the house) although often it is a 4 or 5 Sisters garden, and I've almost never done it the same way twice because I haven't been entirely happy with its performance in one way or another. As George said, most pole beans will bring down most kinds of sweet corn because of their rampant growth. I have had some luck with Texas Honey June, an heirloom sweet corn from Texas that gets pretty large and tall, but even it will bend under the load of heavy bean plants. Mexican Black corn does better, and some of the field corns in the link George provided would be better than Mexican Black. Seneca Red Stalker and Mixed Colors Broom Corn (grown for ornamental seed heads) have worked well for me in a Three or Four Sisters garden. I like the Three Sisters garden for many reasons. Growing squash amongst the corn plants seems to help keep raccoons out of the corn to a certain extent, though it doesn't work every year---only most years or only to some degree. However, the beans are the problem area. I now plant them only on the northernmost row of the corn because it is just too hard to harvest the beans otherwise without trampling the squash plants, and it can complicate harvesting the ears of corn because the vines will wrap themselves around the ears. Instead of planting pole beans on all 4 sides of the corn, I put the pole beans on a woven wire fence and let them form the wind break that will protect everything else. One of my favorite Three Sisters gardens contained Early Sunglow and Dwarf Blue Jade corn because I could harvest them fast, and I planted bush beans and half runners, and for squash I planted small sugar pie pumpkin. The corn was planted in late March and harvested in latest May or early June. The beans were planted in April after the corn was a foot or two tall and they were harvested in June and July. The small sugar pie pumpkins were planted in May and harvested beginning in August. So, each of them grew into one another's space up to a point, but it wasn't a big tangled mess at corn harvest time. When I plant, I don't plant in little mounds or hills like you're describing. My corn is in a big block in the center of the planting area. I divide the corn planting area in half, leaving a big wide path down the middle of it. Into that path I plant two winter squash plants, usually Seminole because it is squash vine borer resistant. I usually plant 4 more Seminole plants, one on each side of the Three Sistsers garden, and I plant them 4 to 6 feet away from the corn. Eventually they'll infiltrate the corn bed anyway, but by then the corn is pretty tall and well-established and, sometimes, already being harvested. Timing of the elements of the Three Sisters garden is very important. I usually plant corn the earliest for several reasons. First, it tolerates cool soil better than beans and squash do. Secondly, it needs to get some good height to it before the beans sprout or the beans can outgrow it. Third, I want the corn roots very well-established before the bean roots start competing with them for nutrients. I plant the beans secondly, and don't plant them until the corn is 1 to 2 feet tall. They sprout fast in the warmer soil and grow rapidly so the corn needs that head start so they don't overwhelm it. I prefer using half-runner beans or southern peas that are "supposed to be" semi-vining types. I use pink eye purple hull a lot. While they will stay shorter if there's nothing to climb, PEPH peas will climb pretty tall when they have something to climb so they do well on corn stalks. If I want to plant a tall pole bean in the Three Sisters Garden, I either plant the pole beans on the garden fence, or I plant a row of tall sunflowers between the Three Sisters garden and plant the beans to climb the sunflowers. That works only "ok". Many sunflowers are somewhat alleopathic and that can work against the beans. I also stake each tall sunflower either to the fence or to 8' tall dark green t-posts to keep the wind from knocking them down, and to enable them to support heavy pole bean plants. The Winter Squash seeds need warm soil to sprout and they go into the ground last. Despite that, the squash vines are rampant growers and will overwhelm everything else at some point. I'm not saying don't plant a Three Sisters garden. I love my Three Sisters plantings because they allow me to grow three or more veggies in a place where many people only grow one. However, they are hard to work with. You have to weed the garden a LOT until the squash plants are large enough to shade the ground, although heavy mulching helps reduce the weeding task to some degree. Sunflowers are often my fourth sister because you can plant them and forget about them other than staking them as they grow taller. My fifth sister usually is nasturtiums or buckwheat or both. They attract beneficial insects that help with pest control. I plant them around the 4 edges of the blocks of corn. With your other goals of saving seeds, note that George told you how many plants are required to save seeds and most people don't have space for that many corn plants. Unless you have a large deep freeze or intend to can corn, you don't want to plant 300 corn plants because that has the potential to give you as many as 600 ears of corn and a family cannot eat that much fresh corn fast enough. You could plant that many corn plants if you want to produce your own corn meal, but that requires a machine that will grind the meal. If you want to grow in the most efficient and effective manner, read John Jeavons' book "How To Grow More Vegetables...." which I have linked below. If you follow his recommendations closely and carefully, which includes a focus on double digging and soil amendment and growing your own compost crops, you'll be stunned by the large yields your garden will give you. However, you won't get those huge yields the first year. What will happen is that as the soil gets better and better and you hone your skills as a gardener, the yield will get better every year. I had trouble in the beginning adapting to his recommended planting patterns and spacing because I had just tried Square Foot Gardening for 2 or 3 years and had all of that method's spacing memorized. John Jeavons planting patterns are more complicated. You basically have to picture each plant's space needs as a circle, and you plant each veggie or herb far enough away from the next closest one so that their 'circles' just touch one another's edges once they are full-sized. That allows the plants to shade the ground completely, helping keep it cool and moist and reducing weeds due to a lack of sunlight. You do have to amend your soil well, though, or there's not enough nutrients in the soil to supply the biointensive plantings with what they need. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: How To Grow More Vegetables......

What is a Three Sisters Garden? It is an ancient method of gardening using an intercropping system which grows corn, beans, and squash crops simultaneously in the same growing area that is typically a rounded mound of soil, often called a hill. Corn is the oldest sister. She stands tall in the center. Squash is the next sister. She grows over the mound, protecting her sisters from weeds and shades the soil from the sun with her leaves, keeping it cool and moist. Beans are the third sister. She climbs through squash and then up corn to bind all together as she reaches for the sun. Beans help keep the soil fertile by coverting the sun's energy into nitrogen filled nodules that grow on its roots. As beans grow they use the stored nitrogen as food. How do I grow a Three Sisters Garden? In mid-Spring clear a sunny garden area of grasses, weeds, and large stones. The area should be roundish in shape and at least eight feet across. Cover the area with a few inches of compost or well rotted manure. Turn the compost in to loosen the ground and create a moisture retaining growing medium with increased fertility. Water it well. Check the growing area frequently over the next few weeks to remove any sprouted weeds. In late-Spring sow about seven or eight corn seeds in the center of the growing circle, in a ring pattern, spaced out about six inches from each other. Plant the corn seeds an inch under the soil, firm the soil above by patting it down with the palm of your hand. Water the growing mound well. The corn will sprout and begin to grow in about two weeks. After the corn has grown to about ten inches high, using a hoe or hand trowel, pull up some soil from the growing mound around the base of the corn stalks. The corn should not be buried entirely, it's upper half should be above the soil that has been mounded around it's stems. The corn will send roots into the mounded soil to hold it steady and upright in the wind. After mounding soil around the base of the corn stalks sow about a dozen pole bean seeds in a ring pattern six inches outside the corn stalks. Push the bean seeds about an inch under the soil and firm the ground above them by patting it down with your hand. Water the growing mound well. The beans will usually begin to sprout in about 7-14 days. About a week after the beans sprout, sow six or seven squash seeds in a ring about 12-15" outside the beans. Push the squash seeds about an inch under the soil and firm the ground above them by patting it down with your hand. The squash seeds will sprout in about a week. As the corn grows the beans will begin to climb, you can help them early on by wrapping the bean vines around the corn stalks. The squash will begin to grow it's vines and the large squash leaves will soon cover the growing mound and shade its soil. On occasion help the squash continue to cover the mound by turning the ends of it's vines towards the center of the mound. Water the mound well during weeks where there has been little or no rain. When can we harvest our Three Sister's Garden? Corn may be harvested while in it's green corn stage, but tradtionally it is left to ripen and is harvested in Autumn. The cob is sun dried and stored for winter use. To harvest green corn observe the silky threads coming from the tops of the ears, when the silk is dry and a dark brown color the corn may be harvested. To remove an ear of corn, hold the stalk a few inches below the ear. Pull the tip of the ear toward the ground until it snaps off. Beans may be eaten fresh or allowed to mature and dry on the vine. Fresh beans can be harvested when the pods are firm and crisp, but before the seeds within the pods have begun to swell. Pick beans in late morning after the night-dew has dried from the plants. This helps to prevent the spread of bacterias which can harm the plants. Pick the beans carefully to avoid bruising or snapping the growing vines. Bean plants will continue to flower and more bean pods will develop if they are harvested before bean seeds can mature. Squash should be picked only after its skin has hardened thoroughly. Be careful to not damage or break off the stem of the squash...this can wound the squash and it will begin to rot. Cut the stem 3-4" from the fruit with a sharp knife. Allow the squash to sit in the sun for a few days to cure and the stem to dry. Store squash in a single layer and not touching each other, which can foster rot. Squash can last at least two months, depending on the variety. Enjoy growing your Three Sisters Garden!

Evan, I'm from Beaufort but now live in Alabama! I'll bet that you don't want to swap. Vegetable growing in a semi-tropical climate such as Beaufort requires special attention to timing. Please visit the local Extension Office for a copy of their vegetable planting guide as well as a list of suggested varieties for the area. Find out how and when to collect soil samples for testing, too. Is your garden in a sandy location like much of the county? I FAR prefer my Alabama red clay.. I confess that I've never tried a 'three sisters' garden, since it never seemed practical for me so I can't advise you there. You can grow the same varieties nearly anywhere, though, once you have the timing for planting scheduled properly. Evan, you may also wish to visit the Vegetable Gardening Forum and/or the Organic Gardening Forum for helpful answers and guidance.