Indian garden

[sheriff john]

As long as the tassel doesn't fall to another species it won't cross. I am sure there is a proper distance, with an acre and half shouldn't be any problem, but wonder what crossing would produce, to me that would be interesting.

Thanks for the info. We alternate corn and beans in the "regular" fields. Next year, it'll be corn. I'm not a farmer. We rent out crop fields. So, as long as the Indian corn tassles at a different time than the field corn, perhaps cross pollination won't occur?

Are the old stories about Native Americans planting corn with a fish below the seed for fertilizer just a story we were taught in grade school?

 

[sawyer04]

Thanks for the info. We alternate corn and beans in the "regular" fields. Next year, it'll be corn. I'm not a farmer. We rent out crop fields. So, as long as the Indian corn tassles at a different time than the field corn, perhaps cross pollination won't occur?

Are the old stories about Native Americans planting corn with a fish below the seed for fertilizer just a story we were taught in grade school?

I have often wondered about the fish thing myself, but it makes sense that usually planting in the spring, at the same time the prime time for collecting fish. It makes sense to me it is an easy way to get rid of the fish offal and not create a big stink around camp. That is not to say they didn't know what the benefits were.
I have read and maybe someone else will chime in here that the corn wasn't planted as a singular seed. It was planted in a hill like melons with more than one seed. I have tried the multiple seed method with today's variety of corn, and it was a failure, but if it was a maize that grew wild in Ohio valley in pilgrim days it might have been planted the way it was found, in a clump.
In an earlier post Tom A. Hawk looks to have great success with three sisters, I am going to try that Seneca brand, looks like good hominy corn.

 

[sawyer04]

Are the old stories about Native Americans planting corn with a fish below the seed for fertilizer just a story we were taught in grade school?

Maybe known or unknown to the native American, the three sisters planting does offer one advantage other than fish. Tom A Hawk debunked the idea that the squash deterred varmints, but beans make their own nitrogen and corn (maize) likes nitrogen.

 

[William Lincoln]

People need to get serious about gardens and food. With falling living standards
and huge purchases by China of our farmlands, food as a threat force is likely.
Famine could occur as the Bible warns.

 

[Brokennock]

I have read and maybe someone else will chime in here that the corn wasn't planted as a singular seed. It was planted in a hill like melons with more than one seed

Read at least the 1st few pages of the chapter about corn in the book that was posted earlier. They provided a link to the book that you don't have to download or anything, just scroll down the page.

 

[sawyer04]

Read at least the 1st few pages of the chapter about corn in the book that was posted earlier. They provided a link to the book that you don't have to download or anything, just scroll


I have the book and reading it. Glad to get the chance, I read where they shot the arrow across the river with corn on it. The tribes blending together is interesting. Got me to looking for what they called a wild potato. The beans are still around accordingly to heirloom seeds. I have a book about the upper Missouri on food and diet of Native Americans.
The circular pattern planted that Buffalo Bird describes is the same that the pilgrims were taught, well accordingly. I can understand that method as it gets strong winds in that area with any tall stock.
Now ya got me started Brokennock, I would like to know just how many types of what I call corn were introduced by everyone from Aztecs to the Vikings.

 

[pilot]

According to the book, they planted the different varieties of corn separately to keep them from cross pollinating.

Another interesting thing about the system is they avoided dung in the gardens. She says the dung introduced too many weed seeds. She said fertility would drop off after a couple years and two years of leaving a field fallow would restore the fertility.

Modern gardeners get around the dung in the garden thing by composting. Composting raises the temperature to levels that kills weed seeds.

 

[sheriff john]

"Management" (wife), 70 years young, loves the garden more than I but is willing to try at least one "Indian Garden" next season. Someone mentioned a Foxfire book as a good reference - which one? I have the complete series. When I clean out my chicken house (couple of times a year), tilling the results into the soil in the fall has done well for some things (tomatoes, peppers). But not so good for watermelons. Friend said it was "too hot". I'd have to use dynamite to get enough fish so that's out.

Suggestions as to fertilizer? Mulch? Weed control? Burning off prior to planting?

 

[pilot]

Compost the chicken manure with leaves and grass clippings, or any other source of carbon. That will take a lot of the burn out of it.

 

[Cvkotvkse]

One plant that hasn’t been mentioned is my old friend Cannabis Sativa. We know Tecumseh’s brother Tenskwatawa forbade followers of his religion to consume it so conjecturally we can surmise it and it’s properties were known to the eastern nations. I’m wondering if it was cultivated or gathered in the wild like Sang.

Pre-contact, it wasn't here. Hemp was introduced through the Southern colonies, especially South Carolina, as a cash crop. The tradition of smoking it, from the info I have gathered, came in as the enslaved population shifted from being primarily Native to being primarily African, especially individuals from Islamic tribes. The smoking was tied to the proscription against consumption of alcohol, which it did not violate...
Of course, given the genetic and cultural blending between the two populations that occurred in the early plantations, as well as in communities of escaped slaves who took refuge among Native people, the crop and the practice may have spread into purely Native communities. It may have done so among our Shawnee allies; I have never heard of it having been described as present among Creeks or Seminoles historically, either in written documents or in oral traditions among our makers of medicine.

 

[sawyer04]

Suggestions as to fertilizer? Mulch? Weed control? Burning off prior to planting?

Soils have been mangled by modern agriculture and over farming in my neck of the woods. I have found that by just adding a generous amount of lime does well. Got to be careful with bird manure, that stuff is hot. It has to age a while and if you can add sawdust.

 

[Tom A Hawk]

"Management" (wife), 70 years young, loves the garden more than I but is willing to try at least one "Indian Garden" next season. Someone mentioned a Foxfire book as a good reference - which one? I have the complete series. When I clean out my chicken house (couple of times a year), tilling the results into the soil in the fall has done well for some things (tomatoes, peppers). But not so good for watermelons. Friend said it was "too hot". I'd have to use dynamite to get enough fish so that's out.

Suggestions as to fertilizer? Mulch? Weed control? Burning off prior to planting?

I do burn off at the end of the season with a giant propane torch. I think it accomplishes two things. It eliminates all the grass and vines that tangle my tiller and incinerates weed seeds preventing them from germinating next year. Then I cover the bare soil with the autumn harvest of leaves to decay and add organic material.

 

[TCMonts]

It's my understanding that that the 3 crops support each other, with the corn supporting the beans, the beans fixing nitrogen in the soil for the corn and squash, and the squash shading out the weeds. Corn and beans are better eaten together, one unlocks nutrients in the other. I believe it's the beans that help the corn and makes for more balanced nutrition.