When I was a youngster, my mother was in her hey day during the Kennedy years and an avid admirer of Jackie Kennedy.  To me, my slender Swedish-heritage mother in her secretary pencil skirts, blouses, and shalimar, rivaled the elegant first lady. 

Her daughters have always schooled themselves at Mama's style and tastes, so when she retired decades later, by then in marketing, gardening become her new passion, of course I took note, lured by her thrall for the earth, and soon snared by the sirens of my own California dirt.  Through the years when I visited summers, I often helped her dig redolent kitchen parings into her compost site.  And now, fifteen houses away, I can truck off wheel barrows full of that dark treasure.

And, it follows that I now want my own compost site right here in my back yard.  Kitty corner from my main raised beds is the perfect place, back there past the tool shed, the dogwoods, and out of sight behind the structure my son calls the triangular murder house

It's perfect.  It's already fenced at the corner behind the play house so I can contain it on one side with concrete blocks and on the other with an old chain link gate I found on the property.  I dug a hole behind the house..

..while inside I'm always collecting coffee grounds, rinsed egg shells, sadly spent cut flowers, tea bags, lemon wedges, fruit and vegetable leavings, in short culinary castoffs-thrilled that these will stay out of the trash and transform to garden loot.  When I'm cooking, I gather each days parings in a handy bowl..

 and transfer those collections frequently through the day into empty coffee containers stowed under the sink.

While those three containers are getting gradually filled, I also shred newspaper at my feet when I'm working on the computer.  Then when full, I empty the parings into a bucket and the shredded papers into a trug, ready for the compost pile.

 I first pour out the kitchen green goods as evenly as I can over the dug site, add newspaper, a favorite gourmet dish of the desirable earthworm.  Water and a good dig in with the pitch fork.  Sometimes pulled weeds not gone to seed, shredded leaves, dug up dirt, whatever makes sense, goes in.  This is an ongoing enterprise I hungrily study from blogs and books and busy observations of gifted gardeners.

The site is easily closed up from my digger dogs, and a barrow's simple access to compost.  There's no reason not  to take these few steps the way I see it. The clever industry of microbes and earth worms yielding such riches is a garden bonanza a shame not to appropriate.  My modish Mama, after all, didn't raise no fools; and I, proud thief, enjoy stealing pages from her book.

My quarter-Cherokee father used to talk about the "Indian" three-sisters technique of inter planting beans, corn, and squash for an excellent agricultural symbiosis.  I've been hankering for a raised corn bed since I put in my other beds.

It was part of my plan to build this bed on the other side of my yard, having read to keep corn and tomatoes at least 20 feet from each other.  I decided to add cukes on one end and cantaloupe (ok muskmelon) on the other, with the three sisters in the middle, so my dream bed ...

was more like five-sisters, very appropriate for me being the eldest of, you guessed it: five sisters.  I had long since bought my veggie seeds...

Next I had to get the bed built.  I soaked newspaper again, laying thick overlapped pads of it in my-measured-and-staked-with-string plot, then a 4 inch layer of wheat straw, a layer of bagged mushroom compost rich with chicken manure, a 3 inch layer of shredded leaves, then 3 inches of alfalfa hay, more shredded leaves, ending finally with my mother's dark compost.  I took my cue from Lasagna Gardening and just composted away, no careful carpentry this time.  But what a mess, ten inches high but melting fast!

I opted this time to stake the pine boards in place: with boards and a pack of twenty-five stakes, I got away from Lowe's this time for $40.  Not as pretty as my screwed together siding, and probably, considering that law of the universe about things going from order to disorder, becoming more and more wobbly as the stakes loosen.  Determined, though, to plant corn in early May,  I eyeballed my layout and marked the spacing with twigs.

According to Renee's Garden (I googled three sisters planting and found the site), I should have started planting the three sisters when dogwood leaves are the size of squirrel's ears, were I following the authentic Iroquois technique.  I plan to do that next year, humbled by and drawn to the nature-aware wisdom.  According to Renee, plant all three seeds literally in one hole, get a tangled mess.  So I modified that site's clear ideas for my own.  First moisten potting soil with rain water, since layered composting to be planted immediately needs potting soil to line each seed site. 

In each spot you plant a 6-inch square with corn planted at each corner.  I cloched mine after watering the seed, not taking my eye from the spot till I had a container snugged down good over the planted corn.

The idea is to wait till the corn is four inches high and plant the beans near the corn, with squash interspersed between these corn/bean squares.   It took about a week, but the little greenhouses, my humble plastic cloches, kept birds and critters from robbing the unsprouted corn, and a humid atmosphere hydrating and warming the seedlings with condensation.  I gently wiggled the cloches up to remove them, respectful of the sprouts, and lightly smoothed down the disturbed soil around them.

Time for the beans to go in, really mostly Blue Lake pole, but also these beautiful Brazilian red runner beans I saved from the last dried vines in 2010, cleaning my California garden to relinquish my home of thirty-four years to the buyer that December.  A deep current ran in me then; sharply conscious of leaving an era in my life, I plundered garden seeds to bring with me: morning glories, zinnias from my daddy's yard, nasturtiums, and these.  It was momentous to see the large glossy beans drop smooth and heavy as stones from the labeled envelope I'd slipped them in eighteen months ago, remnants of Indian pottery, glazed black  and edged with terra cotta brush strokes.  Some of these babies will climb the corn stalks among the Blue Lakes.

With beans to climb the brave corn sprouts, and squash alternating among those groupings, a few morning glories and nasturtiums tucked in, and the planned cukes climbing up red trellises on one end, and puny melon sprouts on the opposite not very promising, my five sisters are cozy, bristling with cloches again to help the girls do their ancient work.  Corn to support the twining beans which replenish nitrogen to the soil with their rhizobia, while the squash, liking the shade at their feet, provide a living mulch.  The old ones believed time was not linear, that we all spin around in time, past-present-future, more connected than we know, not really so distinct and separate in our dimensions, as we see time.   A garden makes that feel true when you hold the same enchanted seeds, come down through time. and know the sisters are magic.

Hopeful visions of a savory harvest dance in my planter's brain when seeds are going in the ground, so they were definitely busy mid April.

A couple weeks back, I ran out to my beds ready to get the okra and white acre peas in the ground.  I soaked the seed a couple hours and went out to the beds with a trug of moistened potting soil, seeds in the Burpee seed dispenser, and those visions attending my efforts. 

Since the layered composting is still in progress, I knew I had to load holes with the soil as I planted.  I appreciated the usefulness of the Burpee seeder.  I could more easily control the number of seeds for each planting spot by tapping them out the dispenser hole when I dialed it open, and closing the hole between planting to contain those tiny roly poly rascals.  Once on this soil, the spilled dark okra would be nearly invisible for me to retrieve.   I have been known to dump out minuscule dots that way.

Twigs from my yard marked each seeded spot.  I watered in and went about my usual business.

A few days later, doing my typical morning parole, I was stopped cold by evidence of vicious squirrel vandalism.  It did feel like a dingo ate my byebee.   My marker twigs were uprooted, holes flagrantly stared at me, and discarded sunflower shells dug from my plantings lay about in disarray along the poor ruined beds.  I was shocked.  Fifteen sunflowers along the edges of the beds, ten okra, and a dozen white acre pea plantings looked completely compromised.

This was warfare.  Don't get me wrong..I love a little squirrel diving from tree branch to tree branch like a daring forest trapeze artist tantalizing my poor Masie and her hopeful dachshund heart.  But I was not going to lose okra and white acre peas when I finally could grow them in their native south!  I couldn't rely on Mase to help, bless her.

I planted new white acre peas, figuring the already sprouted seedlings could survive squirrels.   I could replace any plants whose spot proved to be too plundered.  I ruled out temporary fencing as useless.  These characters perform routinely in the trees.   Without nets.

Then I discovered the idea online of putting containers over planted seeds to frustrate squirrel thievery.  Hey, hadn't I been saving all those iced tea containers for just such a possible need?  At first I cut the tops off, but once at the garden beds, I realized I could use the tops too.  The lids were handy to unscrew and pour in water.  So now I cut containers in half, using both ends.

I also used a two liter bottle, so clear it was my favorite little cloche, making me rue my preference for tea over two-liter soda.  Those translucent Solo cups,  glass spaghetti and jelly jars have also joined my usage.  Hey~it worked. 

I removed the cloches yesterday and have found all plants sprouted up, okra in the first, white acre peas in the second, even sunflowers are rousing up!  I guess the dingo got maligned about my babies.  But in the process, I learned that those little covers kept a hydrating atmosphere going.  Believe me, Ima gonna use this idea when I put in the 3 sisters bed any day now.  I know the squirrels will rally round for that corn!  But covers might slow them down.  And if I get called away from my garden for a few days, the cloches will also keep my seeds nicely moist.