Guide to Fruits and Vegetables that Grow in Shade
By Steven Biggs
Shade-Tolerant Vegetables and Fruits for Home Gardens
But there are fruits, vegetables, and herbs that do nicely in a shady garden.
Not enough sunny real estate in your yard? Partial sun? Light shade? You're not alone.
When I first landscaped my place, my neighbour Bob asked, "Steve, why is your patio so far from your house?"
Here's what I told Bob:
"It's all about the vegetables. Direct sunlight for my vegetables, and the shady spot for the patio," I told him.
House, garage, fence, shed, tree, hedge...there are lots of things around a home that cast a little shade. And not all fruits and vegetables grow well in shade.
Lots of crops need "full sun" (6-8 hours of direct sunlight every day) to grow well.
But there are fruits, vegetables, and herbs that do nicely in a shady garden. This article has partial-sun crop ideas for you.
Perfectionism meets Shade Garden
Don’t have a sunny field for growing vegetables? That’s fine, there are many shade-tolerant crops.
Before we get to shade-tolerant crops, let's start with the elephant in the room.
Perfectionism.
Many seed packets suggest full sun...and many yards don't have full sun. You might be contrasting your shaded yard to bright, sunny fields of vegetables.
Your space doesn't compare...
So what?
So what if your plants don't look as good as what a commercial grower would grow! If you're a home gardener, you're just growing edible plants for yourself, not to sell at market.
When I needed more growing space, I decided to reclaim the end of my ridiculously long driveway as a straw-bale garden that I could pack full of tomato plants and pole beans. (Find out more about straw-bale gardens here.)
My driveway garden is in partial sun, nestled between two houses.
The driveway is nestled between two houses. It gets less than six hours of sun exposure. But it’s better to have some less-than-perfect tomato plants on that driveway and get a decent harvest than to have no tomatoes from that driveway.
Five hours of sun isn't perfect. So what? The results are still quite satisfactory.
A vegetable garden is a great cure for perfectionism. In home gardens we often have less-than-perfect conditions. So what!
A Word on Shade
Not all sun (and not all shade) is created equal. Here are things to consider as you look at the shady spots and sunny spots around a yard:
Dappled shade. Think of the shade under a locust tree, spotted with little flecks of light.
Deep shade. This is where no light is gets through or is reflected, like next to buildings or under trees with dense canopies. Norway maple...I'm talking about you!
Afternoon shade. A.k.a. morning sun...and morning sun isn't as strong as afternoon sun.
Morning shade. Or afternoon sun.
Create Your Own Unique Edible Landscape
That fits for your yard, and your style!
Choosing Crops that Tolerate Partial Shade
Start with Leafy Greens
Start with leafy greens when gardening in partial shade.
The reason partial shade is fine for leafy greens is that we're not trying to grow a perfect crop: All we want is the leaves. We're not growing for flowers or fruit or seeds.
(And with a bit of shade, leaves are often bigger!)
Many of the crops we grow as leafy greens (e.g. arugula, lettuce, and spinach) have a short life cycle that's less that the length of the growing season. And that means that at some point they give up making tender leaves, and send up a flower stalk. (This is called "bolting.")
Bolting happens more quickly in hot, sunny locations. By growing leafy green crops in partial shade during intense summer heat, they'll bolt more slowly, and make tender leaves for longer time.
So even if you have a north-facing garden area or planter, grow leafy vegetables.
Here’s more about how to prevent lettuce from bolting.
Leafy Vegetables That Grow in Shade
Here are a few leafy greens that do very nicely in partial shade:
These lettuce plants will do well in this dappled light over the summer. It’s cooler than in direct sun.
Amaranth
Arugula
Beets (for the edible leaves…don’t expect as much from the roots as you get in a sunny location)
Bok choy
Claytonia
Collards
Corn salad
Cress
Endive
Kale
Lettuce
Mizuna
Mustard greens
Spinach
Swiss chard
If you have a favourite leafy green that's not on this list, try it. Leafy greens usually do very nicely in partial shade.
One more crop that I don't think of as a leafy vegetable (even though we eat the leaves) is green onions. With green onions, we're not trying to encourage bulb development...we're just trying to get tender leaves. So partial shade is fine.
Try Vining Crops in Partial Shade
Grow vining crops that can grow upwards and into the sunlight.
If you have a partially shaded area where vining crops could grow up into a sunnier location, this can be a useful strategy.
Train them up a trellis, arbour, hedge, or tree into sunnier conditions.
Cucumbers. They also grow respectably well in partial shade. I've grown them in afternoon sun, up a trellis on the west side of a garage with very respectable results.
Squash. Like cucumber, they grow respectably well in partial shade. I've grown them along a semi-shaded cedar hedge, and was delighted to find the hedge studded with squash at the end of the season.
Pole and runner beans. The year I grew runner beans up a tee-pee underneath my apple tree they grew right up into the tree above...and those scarlet flowers looked great amongst the green apples!
Vining Peas. Some pea varieties are bush-like, but if you want a vining crop to grow up into a sunnier space, look for vining peas. And with peas, you can also harvest and eat young shoot tips and tendrils.
All of these vining crops work well for vertical gardening. Find out how to make a vertical vegetable garden.
Grow a Container Vegetable Garden
And get an early harvest of crops that usually take too long!
Beyond Leafy Vegetables
I already told you about my 5-hour-a-day driveway tomatoes.
If you're experimenting with other sun-loving vegetables in partial shade, just expect them to have lanky growth and lower yield. And at a certain level of sunlight, you won't get enough to make it worth your while.
But if you don't try, you won't know.
Herbs for Partial Shade
Lovage is a perennial herb that tolerates some shade.
There are many herbs that grow in shade. Here are my favourites:
Chives
Cilantro
Dill
Lemon Balm
Lovage (this perennial herb lives in my semi-shaded perennial border)
Mint (see Full Shade, below)
Parsley
Fruit Crops for Partial Shade
When growing fruit in partial shade, take the same approach we do with veggies. Just adjust expectations accordingly.
Here are fruit crops that grow well in partial shade:
Choke cherry. Often found on the forest edge, where there's some shade. (Find out about 5 Types of Cherry Bushes for Edible Landscapes.)
Currants. My favourite. Here’s an article about how to grow currants.
Elderberry. Often found on the forest edge, where there's some shade.
Gooseberry. They take the same low-light conditions as currants.
Hardy Kiwi Vine.
Pawpaw. While young pawpaw trees benefit from shade, best fruit production is in full sun. But they fruit well in partial shade. No surprise as that's where you often find them in the wild.
Serviceberry. An understorey tree often found on the forest edge, where there's some shade. My favourite member of the serviceberry clan is the Saskatoon bush. Find out more about the Saskatoon bush.
Landscape with Fruit
That’s easy to grow in a home garden!
What About Full Shade?
This rhubarb plant is in partial shade, but I’ve seed decent rhubarb patches even in full shade.
If you have a space without any direct sunlight, reflected sunlight, or dappled sunlight, your crop options are more limited.
Here are ideas for you:
Mint is an invasive plant that I normally only grow in containers. But in full shade, mint can be your friend. This is the one situation where I plant mint in the ground.
Rhubarb can do very nicely in full shade. My friend Chris had a lovely rhubarb plant that graced the edge of his shady pond...it looked quite tropical with the big leaves! Find out how to force rhubarb indoors over the winter.
Currants and gooseberries are a good fit underneath bigger trees. My neighbour Mr. Browne had a currant bush growing in the full shade of an apple tree...and that bush faithfully fruited year after year, albeit not as much as it would have in a sunnier spot.
FAQ Shade Tolerant Crops
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What is the best shade tolerant vegetable?
Parsley. Hands down. Because it's delicious, tolerates a wide range of conditions—and it’s very ornamental. I’ve used it as a flower-border edging plant on the north side of a house. The curly-leaf types add great texture, and last well into the fall in cooler temperatures—until there's a hard freeze.
You might be saying, "But it's a herb." I've heard people argue it's a herb, others say it's a vegetable. In the quantities I use in my salads, I'm using it as a veg.
Can vegetables get too much sun?
Yes. Too much sun and too much heat cause many of the leafy greens to bolt quickly. They do better in shady areas in the heat of summer.
What is the difference between partial sun and partial shade?
If you read different sources, you'll come up with various definition.
To me, it's semantics. It just means less than full sun. I guess it depends whether you're the type of person who sees the glass as half full or half empty!
Parsley does very well in shady locations. And it’s a great plant for adding texture to a garden!
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