A Garden That Solves Its Own Problems | The Three Sisters And A Chinampa

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Good morning and welcome to Whittle's Green Permaculture. My name is Stefan Dixon and today I'd like to talk to you about harvesting purple Peruvian potatoes in the spring, about setting up the three sisters, and about using the weeds that you pull out of your garden when you're about to do your transplants to make new gardens. So, if this is something you're interested in, then let's get started.

[00:00:38]I'm getting my three sisters beds ready.

[00:00:41]And contrary to what I did last summer, I've decided I'm going to bring my three sisters back to the heart of our garden.

[00:00:51]Even though corn is a real raccoon magnet, I love how it looks in here. And I'll just hope for the best. I'll plant corn elsewhere way out back and other places too, a little bit closer, so the raccoons can have their dinner there.

[00:01:10]And so look what look what I'm doing here. There are eight mounds here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven right here. And eight. Now, let me just pull out a little here. I just worked on this one. And as I've told you in the past, I have potatoes growing here. I have to treat them like weeds for a month while the squash gets going and even the beans and the and the corn. And so I want to have a little bit less of that work. And so because they're purple Peruvians and they're they're really sought out around here. People love them cuz they're are perennial. They're a more easily perennial potato and they're delicious because of their coloring. They're purple. They're full of antioxidants.

[00:01:54]This is what the plant looks like. So, I've just pulled all of these out of this one hill. I got a dozen pots here.

[00:02:01]Each one's got at least three potatoes in it. And I'm not worried about the plants being in full sun here. I mean, they got potatoes in there. They they will survive. These little branches might not, but they'll regrow. Here's what the potato looks like. I just pulled these out. There you go. Purple Peruvian. These ones are small, obviously. They we had the coldest winter ever and these were right practically right on the surface, but they were protected by 4 and a half ft of snow, but even uh winters when we don't have a lot of snow, uh they they come back. And so I'm going to do the same thing. I'm not going to pot up all the potatoes around here, most of them are going to go into this bucket, which I'm going to throw into here, all that stuff with the weeds, and they're I'm going to bring them out back to our china. And the potatoes, these potatoes are going to help us build the soil on the china, which they've done before on another part of our chinampa that we've been planting in now for 3 years. And so these potatoes are going to help us continue to plant for another 3 years in another part of the china that I'm just building up that you've seen in the last few videos. So now I'm going to continue and do the same thing I did here. clear all the potatoes out and the weeds and and leave the leaves as mulch and then throw this compost on top. Maybe about this much on one or two mounds. And the three sisters and beans, which are going to grow up to about 8 ft tall because I'm going to use posts like this and make teeps. They're going to give a little bit of shade to the peppers that I'm going to plant right here. Not too much shade, but some. The peppers like a little bit of shade that I'm going to plant here to the left of that rhubarb.

[00:03:39]And if I need more space, I'll plant a few more to the right of the rhubarb, but I don't think so. I think I got enough space here for all my peppers.

[00:03:46]I've got about 120 plants to put in.

[00:03:48]There you go. All the compost you saw in that wheelbarrow a minute ago is now here. I decided to put it all here.

[00:03:53]There are at least three dozen, if not four dozen potatoes in those. There's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Oh no, 48. There are at least four dozen.

[00:04:06]Four dozen potatoes in there. Plus those four that are sitting there. So maybe even five dozen actually potatoes in the in those little pots there. Going to bring them over to the shade for now.

[00:04:17]And I'm going to put that bunch in in the wheelbarrow and I'm going to start weeding this next mound. And I'm going to put everything in the wheelbarrow including the potatoes all and uh this time I'm just going to remove the vegetation from the potatoes like the branches. And later I might pot some of them up. The ones I don't pot up will go for building the soil. So, I'm working on the second pile now, right beside the rhubarb. And uh in the white bucket behind me there, there are at least at least four dozen of these purple Peruvian potatoes.

[00:04:55]I'd like to cut it open for you. If I find a broken one, I'll show you. I don't want to cut it open cuz I don't want it to rot, but they're purple inside. This one's got a little tiny uh sprout going on it. And and then in here, I've got the weeds and the leaves and also in the wheelbarrow. So, what I'm going to do is on on my new chin I'm working on that you saw in our last video, I'm going to basically throw those potatoes underneath all those weeds, which are combination of weeds and dirt and leaves and so on. and and the potatoes are going to really be able to use those to grow through just like people who grow potatoes in buckets of straw or in bins of straw or that sort of thing. It's the same idea except instead of buying straw and wondering is it is it organic? Is it not organic?

[00:05:43]Organic straw is extremely expensive to buy. And so uh instead of using buying straw, I'm using the weeds and it's going to be on top of the china. It's not the best place for weeds to take root, but it is. But those weeds will be a great place for these potatoes to take root. And in the meantime, the potatoes and the weeds and all the rest of it will make that china stronger so that next year I can grow more stuff in it.

[00:06:17]They're all buried under the under that dirt. There's at least four dozen papers. Now, look at this. You might wonder why I'm not harvesting these to eat. That's the springtime and they're already starting to grow. I don't want to cut their lies short. I want to let them grow. Now, I've gone and misplaced my trrow in here somewhere. Got to be under these leaves somewhere.

[00:06:39]Use them to dig stuff up. Maybe it's in this bucket of weeds. Here's my fork.

[00:06:43]Anyway, I'll have to I hate it when I do that. Found it. My goodness. I've got a video where I talk about painting all my tools red so I don't lose them in the garden. Look at that. I've got another pair of these pruners, a little bit shorter with a little bit blunter end that spent a year buried in the garden and I just accidentally found it one day. Here's what they look like inside my trial cut through one. Sometimes they look like this white and purple and sometimes they're they're the the deepest purple you see there. Sometimes the whole inside is deep purple like that. Could be that they're losing some of the color because they're growing.

[00:07:23]Getting the old sorghum and sunflower stems out of the way, too. This looks more like a sunflower stem, I guess.

[00:07:30]This too, actually.

[00:07:33]So, I've done half the mounds, the four mounds on this side. I haven't added the compost yet. And then the the three mounds on this side and the one in the middle. I'm just going to pull out everything that's on top. The potatoes, creeping charlie, there's some milkweed in there, dandelion. I'm just going to pull it all up, move the leaves over so that they're between the mounds, and then remove any roots that are in the center of the mounds. But I'm not going to worry about removing the p the the potatoes and so on that are between the mounds because the plant should be fine.

[00:08:08]And I want to give make a comparison how this side does which is on this east and southeast side and then how these two these do which are on the west side and northwest side and how the one in the center does without all that digging cuz uh I've dug out now uh about well all that wheelbarrow there plus that bucket over there and half of the first wheelbarrow and so I've done enough work for here. We'll see how this side does compared to this side. It'll be a nice experiment. Also, over here is our potato patch. And the potatoes are starting to come in that I planted at the same time as I harvested. I just threw some potatoes back in. I mentioned this in the last video. Maybe before I finish recording this one, I'll come and have another look. But they're all starting to come in. This morning I counted at least 30 potato plants in this area of the about 100 that I'd planted in this area. The hund 100 little potatoes.

[00:09:13]This wheelbarrow is full enough. So time for a trip back to the china. We got about probably four dozen potatoes in here and probably at least eight or nine dozen potatoes in the wheelbarrow here.

[00:09:25]And I'm just going to make sure that all these potatoes go underneath all this stuff. and and then whatever potatoes are mixed in here, well, they'll be mixed in here as well. Now, one thing I should let you know, though, I mean, this is a full wheelbarrow of weeds, and I've probably in the last couple weeks, I've carted out three or four wheelbarrows of weeds out to our china.

[00:09:45]Now, I do that cuz I'm soil building.

[00:09:47]Normally uh it's not advisable to take so much stuff out of the garden because there's an expression that says especially in the no dig let's say in no till philosophy anything you take out of the garden you should put back into the garden or essentially you shouldn't take anything out of the garden. So these weeds I should be composting them right here and it's what I do. I've showed that to you in the past. In the back corner over by the fence behind the this rhubarb here, I've got a whole bunch of weeds that I pile up against the fence in a low area of our garden. And way back back there in the back corner, I had a huge pile of compost, gigantic, that was sitting there for at least 3 years. Well, I harvested all last year and it's in the garden now. And it was all just weeds, but uh you know, it sat there for 3 years. is I didn't do anything. I just kept adding to it, adding to it, adding to it. I didn't turn it. I didn't measure the temperature. I didn't add any any kind of material. Nothing to help it decompose. Just weeds basically in dead plants at the end of the season. And uh it was probably three maybe four years and I finally harvest it and it was so beautiful. And now I'm planting back there. And the additional uh which is what I did my first year in 2020. And uh the additional uh advantage is where I'm planting where the compost pile used to be. Ground is really really uh fertile uh which is right by the forest and so it's it's usually an area where things don't grow as well. That's why I decided to put the compost there. There was enough sunlight for it to decompose.

[00:11:25]Maybe took a little bit longer, but I didn't care. I just I left it there. And uh as soon as I'm done with what's growing back in that corner, which are peas mostly uh I've got peas all along the back, as you know, um well, in that very in that corner, it might turn back into another compost pile at the end of the season. But another thing I do to add back into the garden when I take out is I add wheelbarrows full of compost.

[00:11:51]Probably as many wheelbarrows full of compost, if not more, go in than weeds that come out. Okay, let's go. I moved the weeds around a little bit in this wheelbarrow so this bucket doesn't fall off the top. Now it's buried a little bit. It should stay in place. I'm back at my china and here's where I'm going to do some planting. Let me show you what this used to look like quickly and uh and also some of our other chinampas that are completely established. Here's the process. Underneath branches and trunks laying down in a lattice work, you know, trees that had to be called out of the forest cuz they were invasive or dying or simply because other trees were growing that needed more space. And then on top of that, over in that over there, you can see the next step, which is leaves and organic matter on top of those branches. And then on top of the leaves and organic matter, I put a layer of wood chips, which you can see right here under this straw. I happen to have straw.

[00:13:01]And so I put some straw um this past spring. And as you can see, some of the straw is growing. That's wheat. Well, it's either wheat or it's grass. But anyway, it's growing out of the straw.

[00:13:14]And I put a little tiny bit of compost there and threw some old seed. And I can see there's some a whole bunch of stuff growing there. I'd have to look more closely what it is, but there's a whole variety. I see there's something in the cucumber watermelon family there. Looks like there's some sorghum or some other grain growing as well. And uh well, we'll we'll see. And so, but if we if I walk past here, you can see some of our more recent china that we've been planting in for a few years, which is this one where you can see we've put the three sisters. This one here, we've put broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. And those uh purple Peruvian potatoes the first year, cuz the first year I did exactly what I'm going to do over there here. I used the purple Peruvian potatoes to build the soil. However, everything you see right up to those right up to these branches, which is the property line, as you can see, goes all along that way and goes all along that way. I put down logs and uh of dead trees. Everything that you see here is on a chin, including this willow tree, which I planted either in 2020 or 2021. Look at the size of it.

[00:14:31]was only this tall. A sapling, you know, with a a trunk no bigger than this this trunk. I planted this on a chin. Why?

[00:14:40]Because I wanted the chinampa to hold and get all the water that's seeping over here from over there under the ground. It used to make this area completely flooded. And so this willow here, which like I said, I planted it was either fall of 2020 or fall of 2021.

[00:14:58]Look at the size of this thing.

[00:15:01]And to give you an idea of how much water it's been sucking up because I've got another one that's not quite as big, but I planted at the same time. Well, so have a look. That one right there, which is just as tall, but it's not as big.

[00:15:14]Why? Cuz I guess not as much water is coming through here because on the other side there's not as much water. The main gist of it, the main flow of it is over that section where that tree is. And so this willow planted at the same time and when I planted it, it was the same size as the other one. Oh, look at how much smaller it is. So that's where conditions come in. You see it? Some people think something doesn't grow as well because, you know, they're they're not a good gardener or something. No. A lot of a lot of the times it's simply the conditions planted exactly the same time given exactly the same care you know and this and there and this started with exactly the same size and look at the huge difference between this one and the other one.

[00:16:03]So it's it's conditions now look at this. See the little culvert there well to the other side of it the whole land was that low and it was all flooded and everything was basically dead when we moved in. And so I created because the the area on directly due south of that pond needed to be built up in order to be able to grow anything on it. That's an artificial pond dug 12 ft deep which uh really natural ponds aren't only aren't any more than let's say 4t deep.

[00:16:32]It was dug as if it was a pool anyway.

[00:16:35]Um, so everything seeps through here and so I had to build up so I could use like a a very large roughly half acre section no more than that close to an acre was completely flooded because of this and so I could be able to unflood that close to an acre and and use the basically almost half acre which is in this area to plant in and use this water while I had to build this chin which so that's the younger portion of it but the oldest portion of it is right hereong along the property line which was all just as low.

[00:17:07]I built it up and built it up. It took me it took me uh well the first winter was a huge piece of work. So yeah, that's where I realized I did not plant this until 2021 because um it took me basically the winter, you know, January to March 2020 and January to March 2021 um to finish this china here. It was a huge job. And so I I planted this in the fall of 2021.

[00:17:38]We got here a basswood. The leaves are edible.

[00:17:42]Of course, we have the willow here and the other one on the other side. And then here we have a Kentucky coffee tree.

[00:17:50]And of course, mustn't forget nature.

[00:17:53]We've got here a walnut tree that probably the squirrels planted for us.

[00:18:01]And down here by the culvert and below this this area, we've been planting vegetables in another Kentucky coffee tree. Much smaller down there. Why? Now, once again, this wasn't planted at the same time, but it was only planted a year later than that one. Well, look at the conditions. It's cuz the ground here, right close to the water, is a lot colder. And this is a Carolinian species, so doesn't like the cold as much. So this ground here is colder than this one which is up on the china. So it's more drained and therefore warmer.

[00:18:35]It's just putting out its leaves. It's May 22nd today. And uh but that's good because a hard frost would kill all these leaves and then it would have to put up its backup set which it had to do one year when it started putting out its leaves too early. when we had warm weather that was too warm in April in beginning of May it already had its leaves and then in mid May we had a hard frost and it lost all its leaves along with our sycamore trees both trees put all the leaves back though in their second set cuz all trees kind all trees sort of had a have a second set back up let's have a look at how this section turned up couple days later and today I planted some corn and squash here. I haven't planted the beans yet on top of the china. And over here, some cabbage and dill. And there's my water over there.

[00:19:29]Fill this up. Fill this up.

[00:19:51]I ra all the straw off that was on it to the bottom side so it could hold back the soil. There's straw and weeds in there.

[00:20:02]And then I added a little bit of compost here. Some nice cabbages until there.

[00:20:07]I'm only going to water them when I transplant. Hopefully I won't need to water them again. But if I do, we don't get rain for a couple weeks or something. Well, this should be good for at least part of the season. At some point, it dries up. Stops coming through. Not because the pond over there dries up. It never dries up. Just gets lower than the culvert.

[00:20:31]Still seeps through underneath. That's why that tree is so big.

[00:20:41]So surrounding that little compost area, I'm going to put the bucket of potatoes all around there and and in around here on top of this either this grass or this wheat that's growing and then all into here. We'll see how much of it I can cover up. There's the bucket of potatoes. Now there are a lot more here.

[00:20:58]And now I'm just going to dump all this on top of what I just dumped and basically fill in this area here on top of the straw. There are a lot of branches and wood chips under here. And that's how I'm able to get that wheelbarrow up there. I'm going to start laying all this stuff down. There we go.

[00:21:16]All laid down. And I've got at least another wheelbarrow to bring today, which I'll just put on top of that.

[00:21:22]There's the middle there where I had stuff growing. It's uh it shouldn't be too smothered there. I think it'll be fine. It's mostly free. And then it's surrounded by all this other stuff. And the concept of this garden too is not only soil building, but growing growing food and not having to water. I'm not going to be watering this because eventually the roots should be able to make their way down all the way down to the water that's beneath. We'll see.

[00:21:46]Stay tuned for let's say maybe hopefully beginning of July, we'll be seeing stuff growing here. Hopefully we get some rain and uh we'll see what's going on.

[00:21:57]And also over the next couple weeks, I've got other areas of the garden that I'll be planting in that I'll want to clean stuff out of. It's all coming here, too. Okay, let's go get back to work. I've just finished this this area, these three mounds. One, two, three, and also the fourth one in the middle.

[00:22:15]I did a for these three mounds here, I did a much more superficial superficial job. So, there might be a few few potatoes left in there and some other weeds, but uh but I got everything out on the top anyway. So, it'll be interesting to see. One side will have potatoes and the other side maybe none or one side will have a few and maybe the other a lot. We'll we'll see. And in the middle there wasn't too many weeds because you know it the middle was surrounded last year by very tall coral sorghum and foxtail millet and and also there were sunflowers growing and there was a ton of mustard. You just have to look at some of my videos from last fall to see it. And so uh so there really was weren't too many weeds right in right in the the center there.

[00:23:04]Now, I'm just going to add a little bit of compost to the top of these three mounds and the one in the middle.

[00:23:09]Probably two, maybe three uh wheelbarrows full in total. After I'm done, I'm going to let this heat up for today. And tomorrow, it'll be nice and hot because my compost pile, I keep it covered so it's always damp and it doesn't dry in the sun. And so, I just wanted to heat up a little bit for the corn planting tomorrow. I'm using the weeds in the wheelbarrow to hold up the phone.

[00:23:36]So, the three sisters, tomorrow is May 23rd.

[00:23:41]Little bit later than usual, but because we've had a cool spring, I'm going to sew the corn and all eight of these mounds here. Going to probably sew between six and 10 seeds per mound and then thin them out to maybe six plants.

[00:23:55]Or maybe we'll keep the 10. We'll see.

[00:23:58]like to have a lot of corn. And uh and you know the this will be heated up enough tomorrow for that. And then about a week later, a bit more than a week later on May 31st, I'll plant the beans.

[00:24:11]And by then I should have my my teepeees up, which will be posts like this or maybe three branches. Uh probably four per mound tied at the top. hopefully around uh it'll be seven feet up like the hopefully I could find enough of these that are eight feet long and they'll make about a seven foot tall teepee. I'd like to get them in before the corn sprouts and and before I sew my beans so that I can sew my beans at the bottom of each pole and I'll sew about six six beans per per pole. They'll grow up the beans and when they're up they'll eventually attach themselves to the corn. That's why I can do it only a week after the corn because um if I plant if I didn't have the poles then they would immediately attach themselves to the corn and maybe weigh it down. But that's not what's going to happen cuz they're going to be closer to the poles and they'll grow up them.

[00:25:02]And then after May 31st, uh a week to two weeks after that is going to be the squash.

[00:25:08]And uh the the squash I like to wait until it's really hot and the soil is really really really hot because that way it'll sprout quickly and it'll grow quickly. It'll grow more quickly than the cucumber beetles and whatever other bugs can eat them. Uh cuz if you plant your squash I could have plant you could plant your squash in miday long as there's no frost coming or whatever. Uh, but it's it's still cold here anyway in the soil at that point. And so the squash sprouts more slowly. Some of them don't even sprout. And the the ones that do, they they in that colder soil, they grow a lot more slowly. And so the little cucumber beetles have a lot more time to eat those very sweet and extremely nutritious sprouts. The insects know just as well as we do that sprouts, micro greens as they call them, are the healthiest thing that you can eat when it comes to green food. The sprouts are the best. They have all that wonderful those wonderful nutrients that that have been held in the seed and that have been released through the germination process. And so if you can get your squash to sprout as quickly as possible and grow as quickly as possible, you can beat that. you can you can get ahead of the bugs. Also, uh because I'm waiting later, probably there are a lot of other people out there that uh that have that have picked planted them and they're growing and the bugs have gone there.

[00:26:37]And uh also, I've got a few that that that start on their own and the bugs will be eat those. And maybe in the meantime, I might throw a few seeds down so they sprout just so the bugs can eat them and and maybe not come and eat the my my pumpkins and squash when I sew them. So that's it. That's the three sisters. I've uh done many videos about it. I like to talk about it because of uh the the companion planting that it does. I'm not going to tell you what each plant does. I got so many videos about that. You can watch them. Maybe I'll put one up right here.

[00:27:14]Probably another few dozen potatoes in there. That white bucket's in there, too. Buried in there full of potatoes.

[00:27:21]I'm going to take it out back. So, just emptied the second bucket of this onto here. You can see some of the potatoes there. You can't really see them all, but they're there. Now, I'm going to cover them up with this whole wheelbarrow full of stuff.

[00:27:42]All done here for today.

[00:27:44]If I get more weeds, I'll come and cover more of those potatoes even more. Just as I was putting this second load of compost on here of of weeds, I should say, I uh and leaves. I made sure to cover any potatoes that I could see. Not only the potatoes themselves, but the leaves and the stems because it's really dry out back here on top right now.

[00:28:05]hoping we get some rain and in the next day or two or in the next few days.

[00:28:10]Anyways, the potatoes will be fine.

[00:28:12]Their potatoes, the the little stems and leaves might dry up, but but more will grow because there's a lot of energy in those potatoes. So, hopefully we'll get some rain and then this whole section should be filled with plants. Not only potatoes, but other stuff. I can't wait to see what grows. Stay tuned for, you know, maybe midsummer.

[00:28:47]This is a jack in the pulpit. A very tropical looking plant that's native to this region.

[00:28:57]And here's an example of the fact that yes, we do have deer pressure here.

[00:29:02]I showed you this tree last fall that was chewed down to about here. This tree should probably be about twice this height by now, but it gets chewed down by the deer, but it keeps coming back and it and every year it gets a little bigger. But here's why we don't have a whole lot of deer pressure. It's because I'll show you what we feed them instead.

[00:29:22]If you look at this tree above my head, you can see there's some blooms that are starting to develop.

[00:29:28]The very first winter, I knew what our priority was. It was saving the forest and it was saving the native trees that would help us to recruit the animals to help us with our garden. And one of one of the trees I wanted to save were these nanny berries which were only about a foot tall back in January 2020 being snuffed out by the buckthorn. I got rid of all the buckthornne and I marked all the nanny berries. There were a couple hundred of them to make sure that they could grow.

[00:30:04]And here they are some of them now. And the deer just love these plants. And they browse on them. They eat the branches. They they eat the fruit in the winter time. They spread the fruit. They plant it everywhere.

[00:30:17]And you can't even notice how much they've eaten. Why? Because these these trees are adapted to that. They're adapted to tree to deer eating them. and the deer adapted to them. The deer spread them and they're just doing really, really well. And there are literally probably thousands of them now in the forest because of that initial work that we did. And so there's always going to be enough food for the deer.

[00:30:42]Branches in the in the spring, summer, and fall, and fruit in the fall and winter.

[00:30:47]I also harvest some of that nanny berry fruit. It's absolutely delicious. It tastes like prunes.

[00:30:54]Here are some of the the flower buds that are soon going to flower out so you can see them up close. Danny Berry, very very very beautiful flowers. Pretty soon the forest is going to be full of these.

[00:31:08]Before I throw this compost into the center pile there and this one over here, I want to show you something. When I brought in the the wheelbarrow, I had to come around this way around the garlic side of the center instead of around this way because I can't get by the rhubarb without rowing over its leaves. Now, now at some point in the summer, usually by mid August, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, the whole garden is like this where all the the the the walkways are all filled with squash vines and leaning over tomato plants and herbs of you name it that have become real big, mustard and sunflowers. It's hard to believe that that's what this is going to look like soon, but sooner be before you know it, I'm practically not going to be able to walk in there. And like the very first video that I did for YouTube in August of 2023, I talked about the fact that at that moment, and yeah, it was I think August 18th, and so it was before August 18th, I would have recorded it. I said now was the point where the garden belonged to the plants cuz I could barely walk through. At that point, I'm walking through barefoot.

[00:32:28]Right now, I've got my boots cuz the wood chips are uncomfortable barefoot.

[00:32:34]But when everything is all, you know, plants and stuff, I need to be able to feel where my foot are feet are falling.

[00:32:40]You know, as my foot comes down for a step, if I feel there's a plant there, I'll move it slightly. you know, a bit of work of balance, but so I'm not crushing the plants.

[00:32:51]All done and ready for direct sewing the corn tomorrow. I've thrown all my different varieties of corn that of seed that I've collected over the last few years into these two bags cuz I'm not testing anything anymore. And it's it's all open pollinated. So they're all cross-pollinated and and you know so mixing it all up so that I have all the variety. I've got different ages. I've got seed that's one year old, 2year-old, threeyear-old seed.

[00:33:22]I'm probably going to put a dozen in each one of these hills uh just in case they don't all germinate. I also brought these partial cobs out. The other half is inside. These are from 2025. And so we've got a red stocked corn right here.

[00:33:39]I just love th that that color. They're really beautiful. And I also love the color of the kernel. And we've got th this one, which has a beautiful color kernel. And then this one, which originally was a black Aztec, mostly black kernels, but it's it's crossed with the other two most likely. So, we'll see how they do, too. I'll put a a couple of these in each hill and then a bunch of these in each hill. In each hill and put about a dozen seeds.

[00:34:08]Probably be putting them just over a knuckle deep, maybe a bit more than the first knuckle. I don't know if you can see the seeds in there, but basically I'm just going to push them in a little and cover them up. I'm not going to bother putting the holes ahead of time afterwards. I'm just going to throw them on top and push them in like that.

[00:34:29]There. Here we go. Let's push these in.

[00:34:32]Push them in. Cover them up. Push them in. Cover them up. And so on. Rain's coming so I got to work fast. I don't feel like working in the rain. Just put another load of weeds and leaves on top of the potatoes.

[00:34:45]And I pulled the these yrow. Just pulled them right out of the pumpkin patch. The soil was loose. I was able to get all the roots. And I just piled a whole bunch of leaves and weeds on top of the roots. And it's going to rain this afternoon. So, I'm hoping this year survives because it's really going to strengthen up the chinampa.

[00:35:05]I'm also using the weeds to fill in areas that have been eroding just a little bit like along our path because we're always walking and uh the path, especially close to where the water's running, there's a little bit more erosion as as would be expected.

[00:35:21]So, here's what I'm doing. I was on my way back to the Chinampa to dump this.

[00:35:25]But with two trips uh in a row, I noticed there was too much of a dip right here after this little uh bridge here that goes over the our little tiny brook.

[00:35:36]There was a bit of a dip there from walking and walking all the time. And and if you're pushing your wheelbarrow forward, I wouldn't have been able to get over that dip. Going down off it is okay, but going forward, no. I'd have to go backward to get over that dip. Well, now the dip's gone.

[00:35:54]I've got these weeds here. Got these weeds. Yeah, I'll probably have to fill in a few more, but but it's most it's made a huge difference already. The cover is getting thicker and more widespread.

[00:36:15]And these yellow are nicely covered. And there's also a little bit of stinging nettle in here. I'm going to cover this one up.

[00:36:25]They're all covered now. It might grow.

[00:37:05]I didn't need to add any compost to these piles, but because this is a real wet area, they were compacted even though I've never walked on them. So, I did have to turn them a little bit.

[00:37:33]The corn is now planted in the heart of our sun garden.

[00:37:39]And in our completely unprotected pumpkin and three sisters patch both areas will be the three sisters.

[00:37:59]There will also be sorghum surrounding this surrounding the north and northeast sides.

[00:38:14]Now I'm putting up the teepeees. It's good to start with stakes that are at least uh 7 to 8 ft long or taller because obviously where you tie them up uh they're going to be at an angle.

[00:38:29]Now, this is quite the However, you don't want it to be too high, so it's uncomfortable to tie it up. I don't like to get on top of anything. Here in the middle, I'm able to get on top of that big log there. Not the other two, cuz they're too decomposed, but you can make them shorter. This one's pretty short. I've just got it tied up just above my head here. So, that's probably about six feet, which is plenty tall enough. What the corn's going to do is it's going to grow up and then it's going to come out of the teepee and then on this side and the beans of course will have wrapped around it and and at some point I might tie the corn up top here. Now because I reuse the wood every year, the bottom part decomposes cuz I'm not going to put anything on it. It's all scrap wood I get from a local carpenter.

[00:39:23]been able to get it for the last several years, which is really nice. I try and use these pieces as much as possible, but over the years sometimes the the bottom is that's that was inside the ground decomposes and breaks, so the sticks get low shorter. But you can use them for other type of staking after that for where shorter stakes are needed. You also don't want your stakes to be too thick. This looks to be like a maybe a 2 by3. It's about the thickest that you you should use because otherwise gets a little hard to get into the ground. However, or too heavy as well, especially if they fall over, they can be pretty destructive. This looks like a a 1x two or no, maybe this is a one 3/4 by one maybe. And this looks like this is maybe a one by two. This one right here, one by two.

[00:40:17]However, how I get them into the ground is I use I use this little metal post here and I just push it into the ground.

[00:40:28]You can use it with a straight crowbar crowbar as well if you don't if the crowbar is straight at the end. I I pre-make the hole and then it's easier to push that into the ground. I go as deep as I can with this thing and then I push these into the ground.

[00:40:42]All done. The heart of the garden.

[00:41:01]I've won three sisters mount. I've pulled out the the the camera a bit so it's the view's a little distorted. But anyways, it's just by the greenhouse.

[00:41:10]As you can see, it's 3:30 in the afternoon and the shade from the house is about to cover the hill. So, there are a lot fewer hours on this hill in particular. However, it's an experiment I started last year, although I didn't plant it until almost the end of June.

[00:41:26]Now, it's the end of May. And what I'm going to do because the season is considerably shorter here and the hours of sunlight are also considerably shorter. I'll have to measure them precisely, but I know they're just sort of at the limit, if not below the limit, maybe below 6 hours per day. I'll have to see.

[00:41:44]What I'm going to do this year is plant everything at the same time, which is different from how I usually do it. So, I'm going to plant the corns, beans, and squash all at the same time. I'm going to do that right now. It's May 25th today, so it's a bit early for me as far as the beans and the squash are concerned. I don't usually do those until at the very least the 31st of May.

[00:42:05]However, we'll see how things go. So, I've put eight beans around each base of the pole.

[00:42:16]I've put I don't know about a dozen corn seeds in the middle here. And then I've probably got about 15 Queensland blue squash seeds. Homegrown Queensland blue squash seeds. And I'm also using these as a trap crop to attract all the bugs here far away from my garden. They want to come and eat these while they grow slowly. And then when it's time for me to plant my squash in my main pumpkin patch and and sun garden, then maybe there won't be as many bugs there cuz all the bugs and birds will come here. I'm just going to push all these seeds bit more than a knuckle deep. Just like that.

[00:43:10]And you notice the the beans and corn are all different colors and sizes.

[00:43:19]It's because everything's open pollinated here and we started with several varieties of everything and they just all cross-pollinated.

[00:43:28]All done. You can see all the holes created by my finger. I'm just going to pass over that and just flatten all the soil over top. Now, I didn't add any compost here. This was just all covered in all these leaves.

[00:43:43]And uh I just pushed the leaves off down to the bottom of the mound there.

[00:43:48]They're just going to create a barrier between the grass and the mound and the squash can grow into that. This is just all the soil left over from last year that was here last year that I planted into just cover all these up.

[00:44:10]All done. We'll see how that goes.

[00:44:13]I should add that this mound which is close to this fence and the house is sheltered from the northeast, north and northwest and it's also a little bit elevated and so and also it's got the heat trap of the greenhouse not far away. So, there's very little chance of this mound getting any frost between now and the first week of June.

[00:44:52]I'm going to finish off the video with an update of how everything's doing today on May 23rd.

[00:45:04]Cabbage, onions, parsley, maragolds, chundula, yrow and sage, lettuce, various types of kale, mustard, rudabagga, sorrel, oregano, wild bergamont and raspberries.

[00:45:44]Curly parsley in its second year and mustard that always selfseeds.

[00:45:50]two types of kale, the seeds of which came from the same plant and lettuce.

[00:46:02]Various types of beets and lettuce.

[00:46:17]Turnip, carrots, and rudabagga.

[00:46:22]Carrots and lettuce next to where the tomatoes will be.

[00:46:45]Onions and carrots.

[00:46:59]peace.

[00:47:20]Two types of barley soon to be joined by five types of sorghum, millet, buckwheat, and oats.

[00:47:47]More lettuce, parsley and oregano.

[00:47:54]Lassinato, kale, dill, nigella, cardon, maragolds, and calundula.

[00:48:16]garlic.

[00:48:24]The grains are coming along. And inside the window here, got the sweet potato.

[00:48:33]There's a I think that's a birdhouse gordon there. And some more lofah and a greenhouse full of all of the heat loving plants, which will have to be for another video. Finally getting caught up in the garden on May 23rd. I feel like I'm finally caught up after this cool spring that we've been having. Oh, this little rain because we've been having a cool and dry spring.

[00:49:02]This little rain is a real blessing.

[00:49:04]Been working in it all day today and yet I'm not soaked. Just this nice light rain, but it's soaking into the ground.

[00:49:12]It's our second day of rainy misty weather. Actually, yesterday was steady rain, but it was never really heavy rain, but it was steady rain most of the day, which was really nice, and through the night cuz we really needed it. And uh it's it's just uh it's just 2 days after I finished doing this. So, the day after I finished doing this, we got the rain I was hoping for. We got now we got two days of rain. When I came back here to check things out, how things were were going, I found this on top of the straw, either because it got dug up, but most likely just because when I threw everything, it just probably rolled out.

[00:49:50]So, I want to show you what the inside looks like. And then I'm just going to put it back on the straw to let the wound heal and dry up. And then I'll put it under the under the uh under these weeds here. So just let's just break it here. There we go.

[00:50:05]So it's the spring. It's probably used a lot of its energy to survive the winter that you see that white and purple. They can they can look like that inside.

[00:50:16]They're completely edible just like any potato. And they taste pretty well just like any potato. But sometimes that darker purple color you see there while it's through and through the root and and you don't see too much white. You might see it might be marbled with white, but almost all purple and sometimes almost all or sometimes all purple with different shades of purple.

[00:50:38]Really beautiful potato. I'm just going to put this back down here on top and let it dry out in the sun and in a couple days I'll bury it again. The walking onions in these pots, which are always our earliest ones, are starting to develop their top onions.

[00:50:58]I get he's getting supper ready outdoors.

[00:51:04]Hope you enjoyed the video. Hope you learned something from it. You found it useful. If you liked it, then please give it the thumbs up and share with your friends. And don't forget to leave a comment or question. As you know, I answer all your questions and all your comments. Thank you very much for watching. Have a wonderful week and we will see you next time.

[00:52:15]Heat. Heat.