Seneca women raised the foods that sustained their people, giving the community of Ganondagan a good diet and a healthy lifestyle. They gathered in large work parties to plant, weed, and harvest the gardens surrounding their homes, and they taught their children horticultural skills and how to protect crops from animals and birds. They planted corn, beans, and squash, called the Three Sisters (Deoheko), in abundance in small mounds of earth, with four seeds of corn at the center, a circle of beans planted a few weeks later around the corn so the beans could grow up the stalks, and a second circle of squash seeds around the beans to provide ground cover and keep the mound moist and weed free. Together the Three Sisters grew strong as the roots of each plant fed nutrients to the others, and when eaten together, corn, beans, and squash provided all of the nutrients the Seneca (Onondowahgah), people of the great hill, needed for healthy living.