Where Can Plants and Rocks be Companions?

 

The local children’s club came to visit the community garden this week.  We asked them to bring their creativity and good wishes to the garden by painting rocks that would be companions to the plants.  The thirty children were aged from five to sixteen years of age and they are used to doing things together as a group in which the older kids help the younger ones.

While the initial coat of paint was drying we told them the story of the Three Sisters, corn beans and squash that are grown together as companions. The Three Sister plants are the centrepiece of our garden.   If you are not familiar with this ancient Indigenous story, you can hear it here:

In this story, the corn helps the beans to climb up to where the sun is.  The beans have bacteria in their roots that takes nitrogen out of the air and the beans share this nitrogen with the corn which uses a lot of nitrogen as it grows.  And the squash covers the ground so that the water doesn’t evaporate as quickly.  The squash’s prickly leaves keep away predators as well.  When these three plants are grown together, they produce 30% more food than if they grow separately.  And of course, these three sisters feed people in a balanced way with protein, carbohydrates and vitamins.  Just like these three sisters, the kids in the club are stronger when they work together as well.

After the story and a vegetable identification game, the children put the second coat of paint on their rocks and after they were dry, placed them in the garden beside the plants that the rocks would be companions to.  Here are some pictures of those beautiful companions.

The children also decorates wooden medallion that were
hung on the chicken wire surrounding the garden.

The word companion comes from the Latin com which means together and panis which means bread.  It literally means to break bread together.  And in keeping with the theme of companions, we will be sharing the food that is grown in this garden with the community.