I’d like to share about my milpa-inspired field featuring a diverse genepool of sweet corn, maxima and moschata squash, dry beans, amaranth, sunflowers, and more.
I’m a market and CSA vegetable farmer on 1.5 acres in the Portland metro area. I’ve been interested in interplanting crops since I started growing around 12 years ago. I think it’s fascinating how many plants seem to grow better together, supporting a more diverse soil ecosystem for microbes and better cycling nutrients. After participating in Going to Seed’s online course on traditional milpa farming in Mexico, I was fully inspired to try a milpa-style field this year.
In addition to being inspired by the milpa farmers, I’m also very interested in developing adaptation varieties for our farm and local community. So our milpa field primarily includes a diverse collection of sweet corn, maxima squash, dry pole beans, amaranth and sunflowers. We hope to select for vigor, yield, flavor, beauty, and resistance to a local pest called symphylans. In addition to these crops, we sprinkled in a few others into the gaps, like muskmelons, gourds, buckwheat, borage, purslane, marigolds, tithonia, cosmos, and crimson clover.
Nearly everything was direct sown, with no added fertility, and some light weeding to prevent crowding. We applied a light mulch into the pathways, to prevent weeds and retain moisture. We had an unusually cool and damp spring, so the field was a bit slow to get going, but now in mid-July seems to be growing well.
April 23 - Field is ready to plant. We installed a makeshift archway with scrap materials to create a symbolic entryway into the milpa, with hopes that it will be covered in gourds, beans and sweet peas.
May 20 - It’s a bit unseasonably cool, and this field also receives a fair amount of shade. But the corn was sown and is germinating! We planted around 10 different genepools of sweet corn, including some Astronomy Domine descendants, notable local Oregon varieties, and the Going to Seed mix. We grouped each genepool/variety together in the field to keep tabs on what performs well, with the understanding and hope that these will all cross.
June 29 - it’s still been a cool spring, but temps are finally warming up and the squash is germinating. The squash is a diverse collection of mostly maxima (with some moschata). This collection is sponsored by the Going to Seed farmer grant, and includes over 30 collections of diverse maximas, including notable heirlooms, Oregon favorites, and diverse genepool collections. We applied some light mulch in the pathways and continued light weeding.
July 8 - Finally getting some hot summer weather and the crops are taking off. We can notice more unique characteristics among individual plants. Beans are starting to come up where we planted them around the tallest corn and sunflowers.
July 20 - We’ve had a nice run of hot weather and the field is looking pretty good. The archway is starting to get covered! Most corn and squash are in full bloom, with first fruits beginning to form. We are also harvesting the first of the amaranth for the nutritious leaves. They are unbelievably beautiful! We are very excited for the first sweet corn harvests soon, and the beginning of diverse squash fruit formation.
