This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com.
Today we have an exciting episode for you - we’re going to talk about shade-loving
plants or plants actually you can grow in the shade.
So I’m here in my backyard right now, and behind me I have these Jerusalem artichokes.
And the Jerusalem artichokes, I’m here in the shade this is definitely not full sun,
they grow in the shade, and it’s definitely not a problem for them.
They do fairly well in the shade and they will grow and produce tubers, although I have
planted in full sun, and they do much better that being said.
Why?
Well you know what, the sun is like the plant’s food, it’s like us eating something.
When the sun shines on the leaves, obviously the plants are able to convert the sun’s
light or energy into its energy.
So the chlorophyll and photosynthesis takes place.
So when you plant things in full sun or more sun, they’re going to pretty much grow faster
and do better and that’s why only some vegetables are good in partial, and not many do good
in full shade.
So let’s go to the front yard and check out some shady areas that I’m growing in.
So we’re here in my front yard, and this is just one of the things I’m growing in
the shade, this is actually called red variegated sorrel, and it actually does quite well in
the shade, its grown pretty much over a year now, and it’s finally going to flower and
seed.
You can pick the red variegated sorrel and use it as a green.
I wouldn’t eat a whole lot of it, it has a sorrel-y type flavor.
You can taste that sorrel flavor, like the lemony stuff with the sour.
But yeah a little bit here and there thrown in a smoothie, you know or add a couple leaves
to a salad, definitely a good addition.
I love the red variegation on there, and you know every different color in the plants gives
us different antioxidants, so this is some cool red antioxidants and this does grow year
round here in California.
The other thing I want to talk about while we’re talking about shady plants is that
everybody always tries to grow different things in shade, and there’s different amounts
of shade.
Like this is a pretty shady spot and barely gets any direct sunlight here, and it does
fine, so this is pretty much full shade, and some places may get two to four hours of shade
or more or less, and we want to look at the natural habitat of the plant that we want
to grow.
So if some plants grew out in the field, they’d want full sun, but if some plants grew in
a forest under the canopy was their natural habitat, those would tend to be better.
So we want to look for those plants that in the natural habitat would be grown naturally
in a shady spot, and I haven’t heard a lot of people tell us about that kind of thing.
I’m sure sorrel based on that has grown in shady spots.
Let’s go and check out some other more common vegetables that I’m growing in some shady
spots.
Alright so here’s another area in my garden where I’m growing in the shade.
It’s basically that I have an overhang to my house, right next to my house.
And I started this area to grow in the winter time because it would remain warmer in the
winter, and also in the winter there’s less sun.
But the main thing for me in the winter time it’s colder, and things don’t tend to
grow as fast in the cold, so we put this bed in where things grow faster than just out
not in the cold.
In this area right now what we’ve grown in the past are things like lettuces and the
Brassicas such as kale, kohlrabi, cauliflower and broccoli, and they do all really well,
right now we have some dino kale growing, some green and red kohlrabi, and some chard
growing.
But other common vegetables that’ll do fairly well in the shade include things like lettuces,
and alliums, and mint, and other herbs basically.
And you know, beets, chard as well, and the thing is you want to just try it and see,
depending on how much shade you have, if you have a totally shady dark spot, don’t even
bother, and I’ll show you an example of that in a little bit.
But just experiment.
Gardening is fun, and don’t spend your life savings on things growing in the shade, but
plant one of each different kind of plant in your shady spots around your house and
find out what works.
Every micro-climate is different, whether it’s underneath a tree, underneath an overhang,
and the soils are different, and just plant some different seeds or different plants,
and see what works, see what doesn’t, keep on doing what works and don’t do what doesn’t
work.
Let’s check out another shady area in my garden.
So here’s another shady spot, this is once again underneath the overhang in my front
yard, and what I planted here was chufas, and these chufas I had an episode about that
earlier, they’re small little chufa nuts they call them, Spanish used to make [inaudible]
with them, and I think they say full sun on the package, but I’m not a person to follow
directions too well, and I like to experiment and find out what happens.
And this is a perfect example of what will happen if you grow things in the shade and
it’s too shady.
You could actually, maybe we’ll get a side shot of this.
So here’s the side shot of what’s going on, you can see in the front, the chufas,
they’re nice and tall.
I mean these ones are really tall, here at least a little bit over a foot tall, then
this gets the most sun, but as you go back near closer to the house, you can kind of
see they’re tall, then guess what?
They get shorter, and shorter and shorter till we get over here, and these guys that
are a lot more shade are about half the size literally as the ones in the full sun.
So are these good to plant in the shade?
Well I mean they’ll grow, they’re not going to lose their lives, but they don’t
grow as well, and they’re probably not going to make as much quantity of the chufa nuts
that I’m desiring.
But you know we have this open space, and I wanted to try it and to see what’s going
to work and what doesn’t work, and next year probably not going to plant chufas in
this space, I’m probably going to plant it more in full sun because you’ll get definitely
better production.
Let’s move on and check out something else growing in my garden in the shade.
So yet another shady spot underneath the overhang yet again, and we have a wine barrel here
and I’m planting pineapple sage, and I grow pineapple sage for the flowers, the hummingbirds
love the flowers and I love to eat the flowers too and the nectar that’s on the end of
the flowers are so delicious.
But this is another plant that does really well and still blooms and everything in partial
shade.
So pineapple sage and other herbs, you know herbs are pretty much good shade-tolerant
plants to grow or not in full sun, so definitely you can grow those inside and even outside
under shade, they’ll do fairly well too.
So another thing that does really fairly good in full shade, although I’ve never grown
them in full sun, they’d probably do a lot better just like the example you saw with
the chufas, in full sun things are going to grow much better, maybe if they don’t get
as much sun they won’t grow as big and as bountiful, but I have grapes growing here
on a trellis, and this is pretty much in 90 percent shade, but you can still see I got
grapes hanging on there, if I did grow them in full sun probably have a lot more grapes
to eat.
Also in the shade over here we have some cilantro growing, and of course I have my herb beds.
Now this gets nice morning sun in the morning, and now we’re pretty much in the shade,
but as you can see all the basils are doing really well and all the different herbs are
doing well also.
So herbs definitely a good thing to plant in the shade.
The other thing too, they say artichokes should be in full sun, but once again maybe if I
did them in full sun they’d be super-high, but I don’t want them to get super-big and
super-large, I like to control them, and I like to say that I have them, and here’s
some artichokes growing I’ve harvested a few already this season, and this is once
again growing artichokes pretty much in the shade, and this one actually looks like it
needs to get harvested real soon.
So here’s yet another shady spot in my yard, and it’s basically underneath my fig tree,
these figs come out, and we try to basically pull it up to get some light on this bed below
it.
Last year this fig tree wasn’t coming out as much but it really likes to grow.
The other thing is in the winter months, the fig tree drops its leaves, so then basically
I have full sun, or actually partial sun because the winter time it doesn’t get as bright
in the winter, so that’s the other thing you want to look for plants that would maybe
naturally grow better in the winter time, obviously things like tomatoes and peppers
wouldn’t grow in the winter, so maybe you shouldn’t plant them in a shady spot.
Generally the leaf vegetables and some root crops and herbs seem to do better in the shade.
But here’s a good example here, say for example all these lettuces were about the
same age when we planted them, and you can see this row right here, they look pretty
lush and abundant?
They’re getting fairly good sun.
But if we go back over here, this guy and this guy over here, they’re pretty much
a lot more in the shade, and the ones in the shade just aren’t quite growing as fast.
So while you can grow things in the shade, it’s just not optimal.
You’ve got to kind of find that place where the thing can grow in the shade and then do
reasonably well.
So I guess a lot of things will make it in the shade, but will they do reasonably well
and produce enough to eat?
Well only you’ll find that out once you start and attempt to grow things in the shade
and experiment.
So if you have grown in the shade before, please post in the video down below what really
grows well for you in the shade.
Some of the things that I’d recommend growing in the shade are miner’s lettuce, claytonia,
that’s a really good one for the shade.
So you also want to look at growing weeds in the shade.
I mean weeds have grown out of cracks in the sidewalk in really bad conditions, but they
still do really well.
So things like dandelions, [inaudible], lambs quarters, stinging nettles, things like that,
they’re pretty dang hardy and they’ll grow pretty much anywhere.
So try to grow some of those, but you’ve got to watch it that they don’t bolt and
then they just spread all over your garden.
So I guess so sum it up, most leafy green vegetables do fairly well in the shade, broccolis,
cauliflowers, kale, cabbages, lettuces, radishes, turnip greens, Jerusalem artichokes, and the
different herbs.
So I’d focus on the herbs and some the greens, and experiment, and that’s what gardening’s
all about, we should have fun every day, plant one seed of everything under different shady
conditions and find out what works, post what works for you down below so other readers
can try that too.
So once again this is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next time, and grow in the
shade, it’s good for you and good for the plants, and good for the planet.