melannen | (no subject)

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I have been having a grump sort of day (possibly I have hit my limit for human interaction for the week already. Oh well, just a memorial viewing, church social hour, lunch with family friends, and a play left for the weekend, and then I can... start all over....)

anyway here is some grump for you, DW.

This is a short and very incomplete list of edible plants that currently grow in my yard, which is full of mature trees and very shady:

wild onion
wild raspberry
wild strawberry
pokeweed
wild mint
wild mustard
daylily
feral cherry tomatoes
chufa
bittercress
violets
dandelions
wood sorrel
wild grape
clover
rose
waybread
(and part of the reason why it is very shady: black walnut, pecan, mulberry, wild cherry, sugar maple.)

Here is a 100% complete list of domesticated vegetables and varieties that master gardeners and gardening books have suggested to me for mostly or full shade:

...cabbage, maybe, if you put it in a wheelbarrow and move it around to where the sun is.

WHY IS NOBODY WORKING ON SHADY VEGETABLE GARDENS FOR TEMPERATE CLIMATES?

Clearly it is possible to grow a variety of edibles in forest understory, since a variety of edibles are currently growing in my yard, and given the focus on resilience/sustability/urban homesteading/heirloom varieties/whatever right now, you'd think somebody would be promoting, say, a variety of potato that grows well in mostly-shade? Or publishing books that go into detail on what plants you can get some harvest from in the shade, even if it's not as much? I mean, I don't need maximum productivity, I can barely keep up with the wild raspberries as it is.

And yet all the vegetable gardening books and organic gardening gurus have to say about "if your garden is shady" is "well, maybe cut down some trees?"

I have looked into "edible forest gardens" a little, that seems to be the buzzword, but they seem to be mainly focused on planting trees and shrubs, and I'm good on trees and shrubs actually, I'd just like a squash once in awhile, is that so hard??

...anyway this is mostly just a grump but if you do have any good recs for sources for vegetable gardens that are 30% sun or less, I would be happy to get them.

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All I can think to suggest is looking into guides from countries that have a lot of that sort of gardening space. Though I'm mostly commenting on this post just to use this icon in an appropriate context.

...Can you think of any countries like that? It might be worth a try but I wouldn't know where to start. (Nice icon!)

Scandinavian ones and the Republic of Ireland, possibly.

Scandinavian ones are probably going to be aiming at a much shorter growing season than I've got. Ireland might be worth a try, though, thanks! Although given my miserable failure at potatoes last year I don't know...

I guess you'll just have to start propagating the stuff you have -- I for one would like a shade-tolerant raspberry because I'm helping a friend set up her garden and it's quite shady (and muddy, ugh).

Squashes are pretty pretty princess who will only grow in full sun?

Though it you've got black walnuts, the thing to plant under them is apparently pawpaws, which can tolerate the juglone that black walnuts put out to kill competitors.

The raspberry I have is wild bushes I stole from under the mulberry tree across the street. They're not very established yet and I suspect they won't go crazy because where they currently are is a little shadier than where they were, but they're doing ok so far, and wild raspberry and blackberry grow vociferously in about half-shade all over the place around here, and nobody but me ever picks them. (I think all the common domesticated cultivars want more sun because they're bred to produce for longer periods of time.)

I am actually trying to germinate some pawpaws right now! I doubt I will get any seedlings though because the seeds were about ten years old and they're supposed to be hard to germinate even with fresh seeds. It might be worth seeing if I could source saplings, though, I would LOVE to have pawpaws tree. (Our black maple's pretty laid-back, though, going by the amount of maple and sycamore seedling and pokeweed we have to pull out of the garden bed under it every year.)

I believe most maples and sycamores are resistant to juglone, and pokeweeds are just unkillable.

Kentucky State U has a Pawpaw program that you might be interested in. They even have links to nurseries that produce seedlings, though I think they a) had a smaller-than-normal harvest last year, and b) are mostly sold out of seedlings at the moment.

I know

biodiverseed has been working on a pawpaw planting project. There's a lot of interest in developing the pawpaw as a cultivated crop because they're the only custard apple species that is cold tolerant.

Oooh, thank you! I will see if I get any sprouts this spring (I'm also trying for persimmon, which is similarly hard to germinate, although at least those seeds were last fall's) and keep an eye out there. My pawpaw seeds are from southwest Ohio which is basically Kentucky anyway even though I get yelled at if I say that around the people who gave me the seeds. :P

The only thing that comes to mind is mushrooms, but I haven't grown them. :(

I have been thinking about trying that! We have some that come up in the yard, actually, that I'm pretty sure are edible boletes, but I've never dared actually eat them. I should definitely try cultivated ones one of these years. (they're not very energy-dense though, so they're not going to replace potatoes...)

I think you're hooped on squash. We live in a fog bank most of the summer and never can get it to grow. I'm planning to try eggplant this summer, but am not very hopeful.

Lettuce seems to do all right though.

I have a brand-new sunny-er spot this year because the neighbors' big fir tree just came down; I think I'll try zucchini there this year and if I still get nothin' I'll just give up. (Which is sad because I could live all summer on fried zucchini and sweet corn. :/)

We could probably grow greens but a) we have about five different kinds of fancy gourmet greens growing in the yard already so that seems silly and b) I would never eat them anyway. <_<

From my experience with shade/fog gardening, the following grow: kale, lettuce, broccoli, pole beans (but not bush beans, which rot), snap peas (sorta, they mould), maaaaaybe zucchini (though they tend to rot, but you can eat the flowers), potatoes (IF the soil is well drained, and they can be scabby), carrots (ditto, and they stay small), dill, chard, raspberries, strawberries. You can get cucumbers and tomatoes, but only in a greenhouse.

Corn doesn't do well, nor squash. Sighs.

Oooh, thank you! I doubt I would have the same mould problems as you - we usually end up with a broiling drought by early August (another reason I am not cutting the trees) so this is a good starting place.

I was filing zucchini under squash, I've never dared even try winter squash. If you can eke out a few zucchini in a fog maybe there's hope for me?

If you get the mammoth 2 volume Edible Forest Garden by Jacke and Toensmeier, they do have a fair amount of info about perennial shade-tolerant edible plants -- but very few of them are crop plants. It's mostly stuff like you already have growing there. But there definitely are people in that movement who are working on the best cultivars of nettles, violets, etc. for those who are growing them for eating. Oikos Tree Crops has some good stuff.

I think I could get that on interlibrary loan pretty easily (if it's the 2005 book) - do you think it would be worth reading through? Most of the stuff I've seen on "edible forest gardens" seems to be way more into the "permaculture" aspect than the "shade-grown" aspect and more permaculture in this yard is not really what I'm looking for (And I already have a pretty good idea of what I'd put in if I wanted more of that).

But cultivars of native wild forest edibles (and especially sources on how to get them/transplant them!) would be great - I should theoretically be able to grow groundnut here, but I have no idea how get started....

EFG is totally permaculture in its philosophy, but there's still a TON of information collected in one handy place in there about many, many different edible shade plants. Can't remember which volume the plant charts are in -- my copy is buried in a box somewhere.

Oikos has groundnut available right now -- they're often sold out.

Well, the place I would love to plant them is currently all invasive vinca anyway, so I won't be planting anything there this spring. I will definitely keep those in mind though, thanks, maybe I can preorder for a couple years down the road.

I feel like someone should be working on shade strawberries because I've got wild ones that have tasteless berries pretty much overrunning any of the shady areas I haven't cultivated in some way. Sadly I have no idea if this is the case.

The tasteless ones are probably invasive mock strawberries from Asia, which are edible but not very good. They're the same ones that are in my yard. Supposedly they grow in basically the same environments as the native strawberries used to and have been outcompeting them in lawn/weed enviroments; the native Fragarias have fruit about the same size but much tastier. (My mom remembers eating them before the mock strawberries took over.) I would love to get rid of the mock strawberries and replace them with Virginia strawberries but I have no idea where I would even get any, to start with - the domestic culivars I've seen are all bred for huge fruit and thus want sunlight.

Edited 2015-03-29 02:29 (UTC)

I can't remember if I've seen native strawberries at the Alexandria Native Plant sale or not. It's worth checking with their vendors though. It's a fun sale. http://www.northernalexandrianativeplantsale.org/

These guys seem to have Fragaria virginiana http://sunmountainnatives.com/list.html

You might also try wood/alpine strawberries. I've had some luck growing them from seed, and Baker Creek carries a cultivar that will propagate by runners once you get it going.

I don't know how you feel about salad greens but my experience of grwing stuff in shade on one side of my garden (London UK) is that peas and sugar snap peas do OK, but sorrel, red veined sorrel, rocket and wild rocket, mizuna, oriental greens and pak choi all do very well.

Also wild garlic (ramsons) do very well in shade.

Edited 2015-03-30 21:58 (UTC)

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