Shady Gardening

Many aspects of a smaller scale garden can be adjusted to meet the needs of plants. If your space has low soil nutrients you can add compost, manure or other fertilizers. If there is a drought you can simply water your garden with a hose. One limitation that is harder to remediate is shady areas. Buildings are unlikely to disappear and neighbors are often unwilling to cut down their trees (nor should they be asked to). Growing up, my family used to always grow a garden with a variety of fruits and vegetables including corn, strawberries, melons, broccoli, squash and much more. Overtime the neighboring trees grew taller and out gardening space was reduced to partial sunlight. The garden was no as successful and eventually my parents gave up on it completely. Now they usually only plant tomatoes and zucchini in the last remaining full sun areas of our yard. The once garden is now just an empty space covered in wood chips. In hopes of revitalizing the area, I have looked into plants that do well in shady conditions. Leafy vegetables are the most shade tolerant. This includes delicious lettuce, spinach and arugula. Herb gardens are also perfect fillers a shady spot. Leafy greens and herbs are wonderful plants to have on hand because they can be picked and enjoyed at almost any stage of their life, they don't need to ripen. These leafy plants can struggle in the heat of the summer, so planting them in the shade is important for their summer success. Root vegetables can be productive with partial sun. Fruits and vegetables that would not be well suited for this space are ones whose fruits come from a flower. These varieties require full sun. http://www.colostate.edu/Dept/CoopExt/4dmg/VegFruit/vegsshady.htm