in today's episode we look at 10 shade loving vegetable plants that are super
easy to grow in your home garden
now before we get into shade loving vegetables let's look at the definition
of what does full sun partial shade and shade mean
plants that grow in full sun receive six hours or more of sunlight those growing
in partial shade receive about three to six
and full shade means the plant is getting less than three hours of
sunlight our number one shade loving plant is
lettuce now we have grown lettuce intentionally
in shade right between our tomato plants and this
plant just thrives growing in shade so as you can see when we were planting our
lettuce plants even when our tomato plants were really
young and not really bushy and provided shade we started our lettuce
bed right in between our tomato plants and by planting these lettuce seedlings
right between the tomato plants we ensured that it was getting a lot of
shade from the tomato plants that were growing around it
so we planted our lettuce seedlings right through the row between the tomato
plants and this ensured that they get shade and
the reason why lettuce love shade is that they store a lot of water in
their leaves and you want these leaves to be nice and succulent when you
eat them and this is why lettuce makes a great
shade loving plant now you can grow lettuce in full sun but
you will see that it suffers a lot you need to water it a
lot and the texture of the leaves is not that good
but you can see here the lettuce that we planted between our tomatoes
which is in a shaded area has nice plump leaves
that can be easily harvested they're crunchy delicious
and they hold a lot of water and nutrients in their leaves
so here you can look at the harvest it looks amazing very nice beautiful
looking lettuce leaves so lettuce is definitely our number one
plant to grow in the shade our second recommendation for growing
plants in shade is radish and we're referring to the early variety
of radish not the late varieties which take a long time to grow
they do need full sun but the shorter varieties
or the ones that grow within about 30 days or so can easily be grown in shade
or partial shade and you can still get a very good
harvest from these radish plants now the radish plants that grow in
partial shade may not have large bulbs like the ones growing in full sun but
nonetheless these radish bulbs don't get that big
so you can easily get away planting these radish plants in shade as we have
done shade or partial shade depending on what
kind of sun you get in your radish growing area
and a lot of early maturing radishes like scarlet globe or
crimson cherry belle which is one of my favorite radish varieties to grow in the
shade you can get away with a good harvest of
radish you can use leaves you can use the bulbs and end up
with a really good harvest by growing radish in shade
number three is curry leaf plant now a lot of people ask me questions on how
curry leaf plants grow and this is our curry leaf plant that is
growing in the sun full sun and you can see that the leaves are not
very healthy they are doing okay but the sun is really taking a toll on
them as compared to the curry leaf plant that's growing in our california room
which has quite a lot of shade and you can see that the leaves are a lot
healthier they are nice and juicy and plumpy
compared to the ones growing in full sun now i have grown curry leaf plants in
full shade partial shade and they grow really well in fact in my
previous garden i had curry leaf plants growing in
partial shade almost all the time and they produce great curry leaves as
you can see number four is basil now there are a lot of
different types of basil like this holy basil plant that you can see
there are actually two types of holy basil both of
the ones that we have in our garden growing in shade
and they're doing pretty well and basil plants will grow very well in shade
they actually do not like full sun if you grow them in full sun
the leaves turn yellow and they're not as delicious to eat compared to the ones
growing in the shade and that's especially true for these
basil plants like the thai basil and the sweet basil
that's growing in our green stock planter and i'll have a complete review
of the green stock planter coming up very soon
it's an incredible piece of equipment that you can have in your garden for
growing your vegetables and herbs and there are also a lot of interesting
basil varieties as you can see here this is the boxwood
basil one of my favorite basil varieties to grow
this is the sweet basil the sweet basil is one of the most common
basil varieties that people grow in their home garden and they love
shade so next time you're planting your basil
remember that you can plant them in partial shade or full shade
and still get away with really great basil plants
number five is cilantro now cilantro is an herb that just hates full sun
these are the cilantro plants that are growing in full sun
and the sun is again taking a toll on these plants
you can see that the leaves are brown and not so healthy
compared to the ones that we grew and shade you can see here these cilantro
plants the leaves are nice and plumpy they have
a lot of juice in them lot of flavor and the harvest looks
amazing so cilantro can easily grow in partial
shade and if you're growing it in a container you can actually move your
container into an area that gets some shade so
cilantro is another highly recommended plant that can be
easily grown in partial shade and still produce a lot of good plants
and you can easily grow cilantro in trays as well growing trays like these
and with just a limited amount of space you can just plant your cilantro
seedlings or sow your seeds and move it to an area that gets less
sun and you can be assured that you will get a really good harvest of cilantro
leaves by not exposing the plant to a lot of
sun number six is mint now mint plants growing in full sun will
be a little yellow and dry and not that juicy as you can see here
this plant of ours the mint plant gets almost 10 hours of sunlight every day
compared to this mint plant which is grown in partial shade
and look at how nice the leaves are this mint plant was grown in an area that
receives just two or three hours of sunlight every day under a tree
and it has still grown very well you can see that the leaves are nice bright and
juicy and this is another mint plant that has
been growing in partial shade and you can see the quality of the mint
it's pretty amazing so mint is definitely one plant that can grow well
in shade and give you a really good harvest
number seven on our list of plants to grow in shade
is taro or taro root now you can see the taro that's growing in our raised beds
in full sun and i'm not too happy with how the
leaves look like the sun is definitely taking a toll on them
and taro definitely grows much better in shade or partial shade
now you can see here this tarot plant is growing in partial shade
and you can see the leaves are quite large quite healthy
and this tropical plant definitely loves shade
in fact you can plant taro in containers in shade
and still get a very decent harvest of taro roots which is what it's mainly
grown for the taro leaves are also amazing by the
way you can harvest taro leaves but the main harvest for the taro plant
are the taro roots or the tubers and they grow really well in shade or
partial shade as you can see these plants are quite healthy
quite big and they're also producing a lot of taro root tubers
so taro root is definitely one plant that i can recommend that you grow in
shade or partial shade next up is beets now beets are grown
both for their roots as well as the greens
the beets that grow in partial shade or shade may not have
larger bulbs but they still have amazing greens
and if you have never tasted beet greens you're definitely missing something
beet greens are one of the best greens i've tasted they're very flavorful very
delicious and you can still get some decent sized
roots by growing beet roots or beet plants in
shade or partial shade now this is a beet that's grown in full
sun and you can see that the beet root is larger but the leaves are not
that healthy the greens are not that good
so my recommendation is to try and grow beets in
partial shade or shade and see the harvest you get
i'm pretty sure you'll be quite satisfied not only getting beet roots
but also very good quality beet greens at the same time
next up is kale kale is one of my favorite plants to grow in partial shade
this kale plant was getting a few hours of the morning sun
about two hours or so which means it was actually growing in shade
and it did pretty well you can see the leaves they're nice
full and quite healthy and the kale plants that i have
currently in my garden are growing in full sun
and they're doing okay but kale grown in partial shade
performs much better and this applies to other kale varieties like dinosaur kale
as well these grow very well in partial shade or
shade and the dinosaur kale is preferred over the curly kale by a lot of people
just because of the texture of the leaves
and it does amazing in shade moving on to number 10
tomatoes really can you really plant tomatoes in shade
well i have some good news for you cherry tomatoes are one tomato variety
that you can actually get a decent harvest from by
planting them in partial shade the reason why cherry tomatoes grow
successfully in shade is because they have smaller tomatoes or
smaller fruits the plant requires less sun to produce
these fruits unlike the larger tomatoes which must be
grown in full sun and this applies to all kinds of cherry tomatoes
like the sun gold cherry or the red cherry
all cherry tomatoes can be grown in shade so there we have it folks that was
our episode on 10 vegetables that you can easily grow in shade
i hope you liked this video and i hope you found these
suggestions valuable for your home garden i know a lot of us don't have
full sun in all the areas of the garden but by following these guidelines you
can easily grow these vegetables in your home garden
if you like this video do give us a thumbs up and if you have any questions
comments or suggestions put them in the comments box below we'll
see you again soon happy gardening