Three Sisters Guild

The oldest annual guild there is, and one that works in almost any climate with a warm summer, USDA zones 4 to 10. Sweet corn is the centrepiece and the living trellis; pole beans climb it and fix the nitrogen the corn burns through; butternut squash sprawls beneath as the ground cover, shading the soil, holding moisture and smothering weeds, and it is the squash that shrugs off vine borers. Oilseed sunflower stands along the north edge as a fourth sister, feeding bees and birds and taking the wind off the corn. Grain amaranth fills the gaps and mines the subsoil for minerals. Plant corn first, beans when it is knee high, squash a week later, and sow cowpea into the bed as the beans finish so the ground never sits bare. Let it all die back in place and it is next spring's mulch.