Hi! I’m Patti Moreno, the garden girl. And it’s time for me to prep my raise beds for planting. They’ve been fell off all winter, so the soil is really compacted. So, the first thing I’m going to do is I’m going to take my fork here and I’m going to loosen up all of the soil by just putting it in and just wobbling it around.

Alright, so I am done loosening up the soil in this raise bead. And now, I’m going to turn the soil. I’m going to grab my shovel over here. And with the shovel, I am just going to go down all the way as deep as I can in the bed and turn the soil. So, I want to bring the soil from the bottom up to the top. Now, you can see that I’ve got, you know, leaves in here and that’s okay. I’m just turning it into the soil, that’s just going to help give the soil a little more fluffiness and it’s also just going to compost down and it’s going to be good for the plants that I’m going to put in here.

Alright, now before I finished turning the whole bed, what I’m going to do is I’m going to add some rabbit manure. Now, this rabbit manure is just going to add nutrients to my soil. It’s a really good idea that when you're prepping your bed, you add compost or like me rabbit manure and turn it into the soil and that’s going to distribute fertilizer to the plants that I’m going to plant in here beautifully.

Now, I’m taking the rabbit manure and I am just turning it into my raise bed. You know, rabbit manure is a great fertilizer and it’s a fertilizer that doesn’t need to be composted. Alright, I think I am done turning this bed and now I’m just going to rake it over and make all of the soil in this raise bed level. Alright, I think I’m done raking. And this bed is ready for planting—use to plant their corn and their beans and their squash together because they thought that those plants were the sustainers of life. They called it “The Three Sister’s Method of Gardening”.

So in this bed, I’m going to plant my corn and my beans and my squash together. Now, the corn takes nitrogen out of the soil whereas the beans, they put the nitrogen back into the soil. And our squash compliments both the corn and the beans because what it does is it shades the soil.

I’ve gone through and I have made little mounts. There are one by one and I made eight of them here in this raise bed. And the first thing I need to do is I need to plant my corn. To cut some corn, I already started here and I am going to plant four corn at the top of this mount. Alright, so I’ve got my corn in and the next thing I need to do is I need to plant my beans. And I’m going to plant four bean plants, three inches away from the corn. Alright, those are in and the last thing I need to do is just plant my squash.

There, you have it, that’s “The Three Sister’s Method”. So, I’m going through and I’m heavily watering my Three Sister’s Raise bed. And I’m so excited to watch it grow. I’m also excited about harvesting all these amazing vegetables that I’m going to have later on this year. And you know what, I’m also honoring native American tradition.

I’m Patti Moreno, the garden girl. Thanks for watching.