Gardening Tips from "The Three Sisters"

  

I planted it, Apollos watered it, but Christ makes it grow—1 Corinthians 3:6

 

There’s the garden I planned, and the garden that God – the master Gardener – provides…

 

 July 10, 2025

August 25, 2025

The two photos above are of my 2025 flower garden at diiferent times .  The huge vine that dominates the photo on the bottom is one of the most dramatic examples I’ve ever seen of a volunteer plant altering what I had planted. It is most likely a gourd plant – as we had some old, dried gourds on the porch last fall that squirrels broke open and scattered the seeds around the yard. At least one of them clearly found a hospitable spot to grow in my garden.  

 

It emerged as a single, fragile seedling that could’ve been mistaken for a weed had I not noticed it before chopping with my hoe.  It grew in the shade of other perennial plants.  Notice it’s not even visible in the photo on the right taken in July, but by August it has spread its huge leaves and long tendrils more than 10’ from the source, – even spreading beyond my flower garden into the front yard in search of filtered sun and nutrients. 

 

Tall coneflowers in my garden shaded the area where the seedling emerged, but the tables have turned dramatically. They’ve virtually vanished! Only a few coneflower stalks and pale blooms remain, peeking out from under the massive leaves of the vine.

 

As can be seen in the close-up photos above, a few of the big yellow blooms on my vine appear to be producing fruit – “gourdlings” if you will.  So, I might have an unexpected harvest come fall!

It’s interesting to observe how, to borrow a line from Jurassic Park: “nature finds a way.”

 

As I pondered this garden scene recently a chapter in the book, Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robyn Wall Kimmerer called “The Three Sisters” came to mind.  The author (who is Indigenous and trained as a botanist) describes how Indigenous peoples would plant corn, beans, and squash together.  

 

Braiding Sweetgrass

Kimmerer explains that the Indigenous method of agriculture is much more self-sustaining than the monoculture techniques that are the norm in the Western world today. She expounds upon her botanical wisdom to describe in detail how the Three Sisters enjoy a reciprocal relationship – with each plant giving to and receiving from the others.   To summarize, the corn comes up first and grows straight and tall.  Squash seeds are slowest to emerge but over time they spread out along the ground in search of sun and nutrients, extending far from their source (not unlike the vine that is currently taking over my front yard).  Kimmerer likens beans to the middle child; they occupy the middle ground in terms of germination order, and they adapt to their surroundings.  The bean plants wind their way around the corn stalks to reach toward the sun.  Beans are also legumes, which means they take in atmospheric nitrogen (N)  and convert it to ammonia (NH₃), which benefits all three of the sisters.  (This process is called fixation.)  

 This description stands in contrast to monoculture, where a single crop (e.g., corn or wheat)  is planted in long straight rows.  While this method of farming was “easier” for settler-colonists to implement, it is also far more damaging to the land.  Monoculture disrupts the natural ecosystem and depletes the soil of key nutrients, requiring the use of chemical fertilizers to replenish the soil – and these fertilizers are dependent on the continued extraction of fossil fuels for their production. 

 

As I watch what takes place in my garden every year,  I think I see a bit of the wisdom of “The Three Sisters” emerge.  I start with what I know:  my settler colonist methods of gardening.    While I  don’t plant in straight rows per se, I still think in terms of individual, non-native plants.  I plan what I will put in which open space.  I go to the nursery (or to the box store) to purchase them in their plastic packaging, which I try to recycle or, even better, take back to the nursery for reuse.

 

Look at the two photos at the beginning of this article again.  The top photo was taken in early July.  You can see a neat arrangement of colorful impatiens in the foreground, along with some other shade-loving plants in the rear.  Likewise, if you look closely, in the background  you can see salvia, petunias and other plants each in the place I chose for them.  Perennials fill a space in the middle.  They come back each year, so I wait to see what emerges after the winter, then work around them when planning my garden and positioning my annuals. (If you do it right, the perennials fill more space each year, theoretically making your work as gardener easier.)   At this stage, the garden was still neatly confined to its boundaries – and it’s mostly what I planted.  

 

Contrast that with the bottom photo, which was taken in late August.  Inevitably, every year some of plants I plant succumb to the heat and/or other stresses.  Quite often, a volunteer plant will spring up in the empty space created that one would almost swear had been part of “the plan” all along.   My (probable) gourd plant is a good example.  It began life as a volunteer, a seedling that sprang up in the middle of my perennials that grew into a vine that dominates the second photo.  

 

The resulting mix of my plans as gardener and the master Gardener’s modifications result in something more beautiful and bountiful than I could’ve produced by my effort alone.  

 

There’s an elegant synergy between the apprentice gardener (me) and the master Gardener (by which I mean God as experienced through nature).   This isn’t a relationship I can plan; I know it will happen each year, but each year will be unique. The key is to receive what the Gardener has for me.

 

As its name implies. a volunteer emerges where the seeds fall, which won’t always be the “ideal” location.  Case and point: the gourd vine in my garden is clearly taking over the area where it grows.  I also have a pineapple sage plant that began as a small plant but comes back larger each year.  It now manifests as a huge bush (nay, small tree!!) that puts off fiery red blooms in fall.  As it grows larger during summer, it inevitably shades out flowers that I labored to plant.  I know when I plant the garden that some of what I sew won’t make it to fall.  It will offer beauty for a while until my sage (or some other larger plant) overtakes it later in the growing season.  

 

I see what’s happening in my garden as a metaphor for our spiritual lives.  It’s good to plan and have vision for things we want to accomplish; in fact, it’s required. Wisdom literature tells us that where there is no vision, the people perish—Proverbs 29:18.  However, while vision is an essential starting point, it is just the beginning.  As we intentionally seek to make the vision reality using the means at our disposal, as our dreams begin to intersect with the hardscrabble reality of living them out in real life, the initial vision might need to be modified.  Perhaps it needs to contract? Maybe it needs to grow?!  The straight row we envisioned starting out turns out to have many twists and turns we didn’t anticipate  Just like in my garden, some of our  initial “plantings” may have to die to make room for something more beautiful and enduring to emerge.  Such a change might provoke anxiety as ‘it’s not going according to my vision.”  In such cases – even when we aren’t quite sure what it is – we must trust that the master Gardener sees a far bigger picture than we do and will help bring the full vision to fruition.  If we faithfully do our part to the best of our ability, God will take care of the rest.  We need not worry (Matthew 6:25); we can relax and enjoy the scenery (Matthew 6: 28–29).