Kitchen Garden Forum

I asked this question of fellow members and am now grateful for the opportunity to get 'The Teams' opinion please

This picture is of part of a colleagues 10 pole (250sq yard) plot that he took on during late 2015. The bed size shown is approximately 29foot (8.8mt) x 16foot (4.8mt)
The hedge on the south face is Laurel of about 9 to 10ft high and belongs to a neighbouring residence, behind the hedge are some trees.
The position of the plot means that for most of the day this area is in shade. It is only later in the day when the sun is round to the west (behind the photographer) that it gets direct sunlight
The picture was taken at roughly 10:40am on a nice autumnal mid October day

This year he grew potatoes, the haulms of which were quite leggy possibly because of fighting to get to the light they wanted.

What could members of The Team suggest might be suitable crops for a very shaded position whilst attempting to keep it within a rotational plan
OR
should he take a 'cop out' approach and just use this area for compost heaps / a shed replacement. This option just seems defeatist.

The picture has come out lighter than the area actually looked.

Part of my plot is quite heavily shaded by overhanging 30ft trees on part of its North side and a 2 storey building on the East side, making its North East corner a bit of a problem. My solution has been partially defeatist, siting a shed and compost bins at the farthest (East) end. On the next part of the plot, where the trees shade it badly in the summer, I have successfully grown soft fruit bushes; these thrive well despite the shade. Any other crops grown a bit further up the plot, where there is still some shade, tend to be rather leggy, and lean heavily towards the South, although low growers such as lettuces fare quite well on this part. So my solution is a combination of defeatist and soft fruit.

Funnily enough I have similar problems. The patch I used to use as a veg plot in my garden some 15 years ago has gradually become too shaded to grow fruit or veg thanks to my neighbours' trees on all three sides so as a result I've been slowly moving the plot further up the garden! In the process however I have found that some things are more tolerant of shade than others.

As Fred rightly says soft fruit is quite tolerant and I have grown good raspberries, blackberries, currants (particularly blackcurrants) and even reasonable strawberries in shade although the red and white currants are not as sweet as they would have been in full sun. Gooseberries also seem to thrive in semi-shade for me.

On the veg front I think you are really restricted to leafy crops. Leeks thrive in semi-shade whereas onions need sun and just don't bulb up for me. Brassicas such as cabbage and kale are fine and leafy salads grow well on my north-facing plot such as salad leaves, lettuce, also pak choi etc.

Carrots, squashes and potatoes have been consigned to tubs on a sunny patio where they do pretty well.

The very darkest parts of the garden and now down to grass planted with ornamental trees and are also home to my compost heaps on the basis of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'!

Short of the ability to have all the trees and hedges hacked down to a neighbourly height I suspect the only practical solution is to go for the semi defeatist option and locate non growing items like sheds, storage areas, water butts and compost heaps in the most shaded areas.

Trying to grow crops which don't like shade is too dispiriting to put with in the long term because you never get good results and experience the "high" of growing really good crops. I agree that soft fruit can do better than expected in shady areas. For years I,ve grown prolific blackberries on a north facing fence which get no sun and it seem others have been successful with soft fruit in shaded areas too, even though they probably have put up with later cropping dates. But this is no consolation if you want to grow vegs like potatoes, tomatoes, onions etc which need plenty of sunshine and light.

All this bring us back to the question that "One man's mean is another man's poison" and neighbours' tall trees and hedges are often a problematical issue with gardeners everywhere. We too suffer from this problem, and it isn't just related to the much hated lleyandi conifers which few people can get relief from, despite legislation which is pretty ineffectively drafted or policed and gives sufferers little relief.

The problem is that people plant these damned things and over the years,they grow out of control. People don',t bother to prune them when they're still at manageable height , and then when they get too tall, they can't or won't afford the huge costs involved to have them lopped back. But this is the topic for anther debate, i.e. Should house owners be forced to keep their keep their trees and hedges restricted to a certain height if they're becoming a nuisance to their neighbours, and should this law be enforced by local councils. . I know a lot of keen gardeners who like to see it happen but can you imagine the level of civil war which would break out between the tree lovers and the tree haters ?

I had to suppress a snigger at your post, Primrose; the da***ed trees which cause my problems are actually owned by the council! Numerous attempts to get them pruned so that they are not a problem, as far as shade is concerned, have met with no success whatsoever. The council cannot afford to prune them as there is 'no real need', and their risk assessment on safety grounds determined that no one was likely to get hit, either on the plot or the adjacent local authority houses, by the 5 metre branches that occasionally fall. The usual 2 metre limits on boundary hedges just don't seem to apply outside of private dwellings.

Fred, I was told that a few copper nails hammered into the trunks of offending trees can impede their growth but have no idea whether this is true or not. You must be really frustrated by the council's lack of response but I suppose in these cash strapped times it's understandable that money is only spent on absolute essentials. Of course if you were a multi millionaire you could offer to fund their lopping or pruning yourself but for most of us that's just a dream.

Copper nails do nothing.

A downwards hole filled with roundup stump killer then sealed will do the trick.

Thanks Captain. will pass on your thoughts.

Who knows he might become a subscriber and contributor

Always room for more of those Pa Snip!