Often grown together with maize and squash in a form of “companion planting”, beans have long been a key crop in pre-Columbian North and South America.

The Three Sisters are the three main agricultural crops of various Indigenous peoples of North America: squash, maize (“corn”), and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans). In a technique known as companion planting, the maize and beans are often planted together in mounds formed by hilling soil around the base of the plants each year; squash is typically planted between the mounds. The cornstalk serves as a trellis for climbing beans, the beans fix nitrogen in their root nodules and stabilize the maize in high winds, and the wide leaves of the squash plant shade the ground, keeping the soil moist and helping prevent the establishment of weeds. (Wiki).

(Also see: Kimmerer, R. (2013). Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. Milkweed editions.)