I'm doing this as well and I don't see why it wouldn't work. What I'm doing is planting the squash at 1 per 1.5 sq ft and interplanting the corn and beans around the squash.

In one of my squares I have a zucchini in the middle of a two square plot, and snow peas on either side of it to maximize the squares. So in two squares- one zucchini and four peas.

I'm going to attempt this as well, but I am nervous because I read that I needed to plant several corn to make it work. I was thinking a 6x3' bed with 12 corn, 4 squash/pumpkin and 18 beans. I'm not sure where to plant what or if it would be too crowded. Let me know if one of you can make it work... I might just have one raised bed that isn't using the square foot method to make the three sisters garden work.

I have done 3 sisters in the regular garden; this is how I have done it successfully: Plant several rows of corn 2 kernels per hole, 1 foot apart. When corn is 6 inches up thin to 1 plant, plant climbing bean on each side 2 fingerbreadths from corn, train up the corn. When I plant the corn, I plant squash 3 feet apart (plant 2 thin to 1) to keep bottoms of corn cool. Hope these spacings are of help to you.

Thanks for the replies. I decided to use a seperate 4X8ft bed. I planted the corn yesterday. I'm pretty much going to be doing it the way you suggest love2bhome, 1 cornstalk per square foot and a couple beans around each one. I'm nervous about the pumpkin spacing, but the pumpkins would have room to sprawl outside the bed, so I think I'm going to plant them at 2 ft intervals. I've never planted pumpkin before, so I have no idea how much its going to cover, or the yield. I'm using the sugar pumpkins, and doing one half pole beans and later in the summer will plant the other half with snap peas

I'm going to bump this thread because I'm curious as far as this is concerned but I want to try the three sisters... the bed I'd use is 20' x 2/5'. I'm concerned about the pollination of the corn... do you think that narrow of a space would work?

It's worked for me. On the SFG website they advocate 4 corn per sq ft, and that's what I've done and my corn are all tall and well pollinated. The 1 per sq ft is from the old book. I'd be careful of the light issue. When they get tall, they cast shadows on the squash. It doesn't matter if they grow together b/c they get tall at the same time.

OK cool, the long bed (I mistyped, it's 2.5 feet wide) is up against my house on the north side of the garden so I thought it would be a great spot for it, except for the pollination deal.

So when doing the three sisters SFG-style, do you still do 4 corn plants per square foot? Where is there room for the pumpkins to spread out? Sorry, I'm just having a problem visualizing this.

I'm the OP, I started with one corn plant per square foot- which mostly didn't germinate, so I tried again a few weeks later planting 4 per square foot, along with grean beans and sugar pie pumpkin. My corn is growing well, and ears are forming- almost ready to eat!!! My pumpkin is insane- don't expect it to stay within that area, mine has taken over half the yard. And as for the green beans- check the package to make sure they're not bush beans. I have teeny scrawny little bush bean plants hidden inside the corn. Probably you dont have to worry about making that mistake.

Next year I will probably only do 2 corn plants per sq. ft., I think that will make everything a little easier to manage.

I did a box of corn 1 per foot planting beans in between the plants. I started these 2 weeks before our last frost date and cover them in plastic.

Forgot to mention, The corn is Earlivee and is treated seed. I planted elsewhere some non-treated seed which only had about 30% germination. This box had 99% Germination...