[dougsta]

Radish - grow quickly so you can always squeeze them in somewhere

[Chuffy]

Last year I tried the 3 sisters...sweet corn with french beans growing up it and squash in between..but only a few french beans came up. I think the mice ate them. I hope to try it again this year.

I believe that The Book says not to bother, because the corn shades the squash too much and the beans are hard to get at.

I was going to try with just two sisters, the corn and the beans. Any thoughts?

[hindy]

I read somewhere that if you have fruit bushes its good to put garlic underneath, apparantely keeps some sort of pest away. 

[woodburner]

I thought you meant catch cropping at first.  

Potatotes and BBs

Brassicas and French beans

Both courtesy of Bob Flowerdew.  :happy:

I've also read that it's good to grow comfrey under fruit bushes, but can't find where.

[Swing Swang]

I've seen peas grown up broad beans in Portugal but have never tried it here.

Personally I too think that the whole three sisters thing is a bit of a waste of time and get far better yields by seperating the crops. 'Two sisters', as mentioned above, seems to work better for me too. My squash are started off outside the 'maize block', but allowed to ramble through it as they develop (rather than planting them amongst the corn).

Leaf corriander between a double row of runner beans, or any other fast growing salad for that matter. You only get one crop and can't 'cut and come again' though.

Mibuna/Mizuna/Japanese kale/turnip tops etc between slow growing sprouts/PSB etc. (doesn't ruin your crop rotation either).

SS

[Salmo]

For 3 sisters grow the beans in pots and put them in. I have also done this combination with sunflowers in place of sweetcorn.

[Noah'strolly]

I've done the three sisters bed the last two years. The beans did ok but the squash didn't thrive.

[Paul Plots]

Runner beans then add butternut squash.... they climb together.... bean harvest complete - you come across the squash early autumn. Butternut - not bush variety.

[Potiron]

  Oh, going to have to give that a go Learner   

[Paul Plots]

  Oh, going to have to give that a go Learner   

I found I had to encourage the butternut squash up the poles to start with (they'd sooner trail all over the ground) but once up there (a couple of ties to hold them in place) they got the idea and mingled with the beans nicely.

Good luck!

[celjaci]

The sweetcorn/ squash combination works well if the sweetcorn is more widely spaced

My own combinations involve flowers:-
sunflowers planted btween rows of potatoes
Red amaranthus self sown in a leek bed - stunning