Shady veggies?

[brewerpaul]

One of the few things I don't like about our new home is that it has virtually NO really sunny areas in the summer. The tall hardwoods produce shade which keeps our house pretty cool even on hot days, but growing most vegetables like tomatoes would be out of the question, right?

Any suggestions for veggies which don't mind shade? Oh, the plants need to be good looking too as I might have to tuck them into a large perennial bed.

[Pammy]

Spinach and especially swiss chard in yellow and red. They look really great.

P

[Nanohedron]

Here's a list of ten veggies that do well in as little as 3 to 6 hours of sun.

[chas]

I'm in the same boat -- about 8 years ago we moved from a house with a sunny plot to one that's almost totally shaded. We have a couple of hours in the late afternoon in the front, and the only thing we've had any success with there is lavender. Our neighbors to the back cut down all their trees ( ), and we've tried several things back there. Last year we got two jalapenos.

I think many of the things in Nano's post will work -- they're all spring/fall crops, which will work in the spring if you have deciduous trees. If the shade is from evergreens, and you don't even have sun in the spring, you might be out of luck. Another thing to consider is that you quite likely have deer. I planted some potatoes last year (they can be harvested quite early here), they were going like gangbusters, then the deer ate all, and I mean all the greens. Silly me, I thought they were poisonous to mammals.

We joined a community farm -- 20 weeks of organic produce, grown locally. We don't belong any more, but still keep in touch with the folks there.

[dwest]

This may be completely out of the question but have you talked with a certified arboriculturalist to see if some selective pruning, not topping or cut down any trees, could give you more sun without impacting the shade benefit to your home? Often this can even benefit the trees themselves.

[Cork]

Not that I'm advocating "clear-cutting" of trees, but there could be other advantages to removing some trees from around a house, more than in just letting some sunshine in.

In short, trees can "hold" atmospheric moisture at, and near, ground level. In some cases, moreover, that's a good thing, but in other cases that same moisture could lead to mold, and other such water related troubles. In other words, clearing some space between a house and trees could allow the house to remain better ventilated, and drier.

[missy]

We went with container gardening. We're in the same boat - lot of shade unless we want to plant in the front yard.

By doing containers, I can swap out the soil yearly (so no problems with growing tomatos in the same "space" year after year). I can also move the plants to the front yard for a bit and they don't look too bad since they aren't a part of the permanent landscape.

And - I can move them close to the house to try and keep the deer out of them! (by the way, if you have shade and deer - don't bother planting hostas. Deer LOVE hostas!).

[Pammy]

I don't like to throw cold water over you but our garden is mostly shade and we can grow nothing. Oh except moss in the grass in the winter, that grows fantastic. We should go into business selling it. But because of the trees the soil is very dry in the summer and watering is such a chore and a bit antisocial with the use of water these days and lack of it. I have planted so much stuff and it dies. Somehow the slugs seem to live very well indeed though so most of what does grow is eaten by them anyway. I don't want to put slug pellets down so one year they just ate all of my bean plants before they got bigger than a foot high.
Brambles grow well. we had a bumper crop of blackberries this year. The squirrels ate the apples before they were ripe.
I think I have just about given up on the garden but the shade does keep the house cool in the summer.
Have fun ha ha


I feel rotten now. We do have a little sunny bit (well part of the day) where I have put a small cedar greenhouse which looks lovely. I get a few late toms from there and I put a pretty obelisk (spelling?) in the front garden and grew beans one year that was pretty and globe artichokes looked good too in the sunny bit.

[s1m0n]

I don't want to put slug pellets down so one year they just ate all of my bean plants before they got bigger than a foot high.

Beer traps or copper for slug control.

[pipersgrip]

I don't want to put slug pellets down so one year they just ate all of my bean plants before they got bigger than a foot high.

Beer traps or copper for slug control.

Yes, copper will give the slugs a shock, and they wont want to travel on any longer after that. Try Neem oil too, it is great and natural to keep all pests off, except for the beneficial ones.

[Lambchop]

I don't like to throw cold water over you but our garden is mostly shade and we can grow nothing. Oh except moss in the grass in the winter, that grows fantastic. We should go into business selling it. But because of the trees the soil is very dry in the summer and watering is such a chore and a bit antisocial with the use of water these days and lack of it. I have planted so much stuff and it dies. Somehow the slugs seem to live very well indeed though so most of what does grow is eaten by them anyway. I don't want to put slug pellets down so one year they just ate all of my bean plants before they got bigger than a foot high.
Brambles grow well. we had a bumper crop of blackberries this year. The squirrels ate the apples before they were ripe.
I think I have just about given up on the garden but the shade does keep the house cool in the summer.
Have fun ha ha


I feel rotten now.

I think I feel kind of bad, too.

With that many slugs, you should do something nice for them. I recommend little dishes of beer. They love to swim in it. So much so that they won't ever get out.

[Denny]

ducks love slugs just a thought

oh, look into soaker hoses,
it takes very little water
when you water the roots.

[dwest]

I have friends who raise slugs. They use old pieces of dimensional lumber that they just throw around the yard and the slugs use the underside of these boards as gathering spots and breeding sites. On any given day during the warm months they have hundreds. They select a board each day that they place in a special enclosure. Inside the enclosure are wild, rampaging box turtles. The box turtles stampede towards the slugs, sometimes covering incredible distances in an unbelievable amount of time. Anyway the slugs rarely escape but when they do they just go for another board out in the yard.

Try using some malted horse feed fortified with iron phosphate, it won't harm non-target species, there are iron phosphate baits on the market that are likely more cost effective.

[I.D.10-t]

Last year we got two jalapenos.

I have found that the most shade tolerant pepper that I have tried is the habanero chile. More shade tolerant than serrano, jalapeno, bell, and thai peppers. I usually just save the seeds from one of the peppers that I buy in the store and plant them. Indoors I found that hand pollination them helped the yield.

I do wonder if keeping and storing your own seeds would help to develop more shade tolerant plants.

[dwest]

I do wonder if keeping and storing your own seeds would help to develop more shade tolerant plants.

Lysenkolamarckism