15/08/2025
Three Sisters Garden Planting Ceremony and Tours
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Join us this Saturday, August 16 starting at 11 AM at the Varnum House Museum for a neighborhood bean-and-squash planting ceremony in our new Three Sisters Garden. In addition to planting the bean and corn, our gardeners will give a short talk and tour on the Three Sisters Garden in addition to our much bigger sustainable gardening project at the Varnum House Museum. If you haven't taken a tour of our "Historic Preservation Gardens", then stop by on Saturday!
Also, our Preservation Gardens and the Varnum House Museum itself will also be open for tours until 3:00 PM.
A Three Sisters garden is a traditional Indigenous planting method where corn, beans, and squash grow together in a mutually beneficial arrangement. The corn provides tall stalks for beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen in the soil to nourish all three crops, and the squash spreads across the ground, shading out weeds and retaining moisture. This companion planting system, practiced for centuries by Native American communities, promotes soil health, biodiversity, and sustainable food production.
The Three Sisters Garden, the Sun & Moon Pollinator Garden, and other plantings are all part of our "Historic Preservation Garden" project where we transform our grounds into an active outdoor education space that embraces history, science, and culture-driven programming. This work is made possible by a collaborative grant from the Southern Rhode Island Conservation District (SRICD), Rhode Island State Conservation Committee (RISCC), and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS).
FB event listing is here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/15zBQm1Ay5/
