Indigenous plants: Native American technique

Before becom­ing a Mas­ter Gar­dener, I had not ever really given much thought to whether or not a plant was a “native” species. How­ever through the asso­ci­a­tion, I have met sev­eral gar­den­ers who are strong advo­cates in pre­serv­ing the cul­ti­va­tion of our native land­scape and the plants that define it. The more I learned the more fas­ci­nated I became. Through learn­ing about native plants, I have also become enam­ored and mys­ti­fied by how Native Amer­i­cans prop­a­gated and cared for these native species. In fact, many com­mon prac­tices still employed in the gar­den today are actu­ally meth­ods started by Native Americans.

One of my favorite ele­ments of gar­den­ing is how it inter­twines with his­tory. With all the mod­ern ameni­ties we have at our fin­ger­tips, it seems hard to believe that food for entire civ­i­liza­tions was suc­cess­fully grown and har­vested with­out trac­tors, boxed fer­til­izer or hoses.

The good news is that in order to learn from, and even use these tech­niques, you do not have to work as hard as the Native Amer­i­cans did. In fact, incor­po­rated with mod­ern con­ve­niences, many Native Amer­i­can tech­niques make gar­den­ing today even eas­ier. As a child, being a mem­ber of Indian Guides and my favorite Dis­ney movie always being Poc­a­hon­tas, I sup­pose it would come as no sur­prise to many that I am fas­ci­nated by the mas­tery and resource­ful­ness of Native Amer­i­can gar­den­ing and farming.

One of the most appeal­ing aspects of inte­grat­ing Native Amer­i­can tech­nique to our gar­dens of Delaware County is know­ing that they work with the chal­lenges of our clay soil, exces­sive mois­ture in spring and exces­sive heat in the sum­mer. Delaware actu­ally has a rich Native Amer­i­can his­tory. The Delaware, Wyan­dot, Mingo and Seneca tribes all were native to Delaware County. How­ever, the Delaware Tribe was actu­ally called Lenni Lenape. Euro­pean set­tlers pro­claimed them the Delaware Tribe because they lived on the Delaware River (the Olen­tangy), which was actu­ally named for Lord De la Warre who ini­tially explored the region. It is believed that the Lenni Lenape actu­ally had two vil­lages within the city lim­its of mod­ern Delaware. The agri­cul­tural hub was a 400 acre corn field.

As most know, corn was an incred­i­bly impor­tant crop to the Native Amer­i­cans, as it still is to the United States of Amer­ica today. Undoubt­edly the most rec­og­nized and uti­lized Native Amer­i­can gar­den phi­los­o­phy is the Three Sis­ters. Three Sis­ters gar­den­ing is as inge­nious as it is effec­tive. In Three Sis­ters gar­den­ing, the sis­ters — corn, beans and squash — work and grow together pro­vid­ing one another with vital nutri­ents. Three Sis­ters gar­dens are vir­tu­ally self-sufficient.

First a mound is built, about 12 inches high, in which a rot­ten fish is buried by at least six inches. Corn seeds are planted densely on top of the mound in the cen­ter. Then bean seeds are planted in a cir­cle around the corn seeds. Once the corn stalks grow to six inches, squash and bean seeds are planted, alter­nat­ing, around them. The corn stalks pro­vide sup­port for the bean stalks to grow around them, elim­i­nat­ing the need for sup­port poles, and the squash grows to cover the mound work­ing as pro­tec­tive mulch. This not only helps the soil retain valu­able mois­ture, but the prickly vines of the squash help deter pests from reach­ing the corn or the squash. Also, the beans pro­vide nitro­gen which the corn and squash both uti­lize. The buried fish acts as a slow-release fertilizer.

At the table, the Three Sis­ters con­tinue to com­ple­ment one another. Corn lacks the amino acids lysine and tryp­to­phan which are essen­tial to the body in mak­ing pro­tein; beans con­tain both so the two crops together form a bal­anced diet.

Native Amer­i­cans also thor­oughly made use of edi­ble plants that grew wild in the Amer­i­can land­scape such as berries, nuts and fruit like the paw paw. Paw paws are fruit trees that are native to North Amer­ica. Their fla­vor is described as a “banana cus­tard, some­times with the pop of a pineap­ple.” Not only does the paw paw offer deli­cious fruit, but it is a lovely addi­tion to the gar­den. Large, shiny and waxy leaves like a mag­no­lia make it an attrac­tive tree even when not bear­ing fruit. Native Amer­i­cans not only har­vested the fruit, which dries to pre­serve very eas­ily, but also squeezed the leaves for nat­ural mos­quito and insect repel­lent. Paw paws can be grown in full sun/partial shade, but the fruit has a much richer taste when grown in full sun.

Native Amer­i­can tech­nique in gar­den­ing is remark­ably effi­cient, har­mo­nious and fun­da­men­tally log­i­cal. There is much more to be learned on the sub­ject but hope­fully these few insights will be use­ful in your mod­ern gar­den. With the Green Move­ment per­pet­u­ally gain­ing steam, it seems only nat­ural to share these tried and true tech­niques. Not only are they wise choices for the envi­ron­ment, but they can make a veg­etable gardener’s life much easier.

Stephen Jones is an OSU Exten­sion Mas­ter Gar­dener volunteer.

Posted by Master Gardener on May 11 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.