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Advice needed!
May. 13th, 2011 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
melannenComm, I have a problem.
You see, I want to grow vegetables. But my yard is basically a forest understory - there's no place that gets more than 3-4 hours of sun on a good day. I went to an ag fair a few weeks ago and asked everybody there what to do for vegetable gardening in the shade, and I got great advice like "cut down some trees" or "plant lettuce in a wheelbarrow and wheel it around to follow the sun" or "go ask those people over there."
Now, as tempted I am to make little robotic light-seeking raised beds, I'd rather just find some advice on vegetable gardening in the shade, but all the resources I can find for shade gardening in zone 7 (where I am) assumes you're growing nothing but ornamentals. Isn't there somebody who has already figured out how to grow nice edible vegetables under trees in a temperate climate?
It's not like my yard has any shortage of edible plants already growing in it. We have
( Raspberry )
( Pokeweed )
( Oak )
( Mulberry )
( Wild Grape )
( Dandelion )
( chokecherry )
( Black Walnut )
( Violets )
( Maple )
( Indian strawberry )
( and Plantain )
already growing in abundance, plus a pecan tree and wild mint and wild onions and some sort of volunteer rosebushes and usually some edible mushrooms at some point, and that's just the ones I can ID offhand in a quick turn around the yard in May--
But I'd kind of like to grow something that has a slightly higher calories-to-prep-time ratio than most of the wild edibles do. Anyone have any recommendations for growing vegetables under a forest?
You see, I want to grow vegetables. But my yard is basically a forest understory - there's no place that gets more than 3-4 hours of sun on a good day. I went to an ag fair a few weeks ago and asked everybody there what to do for vegetable gardening in the shade, and I got great advice like "cut down some trees" or "plant lettuce in a wheelbarrow and wheel it around to follow the sun" or "go ask those people over there."
Now, as tempted I am to make little robotic light-seeking raised beds, I'd rather just find some advice on vegetable gardening in the shade, but all the resources I can find for shade gardening in zone 7 (where I am) assumes you're growing nothing but ornamentals. Isn't there somebody who has already figured out how to grow nice edible vegetables under trees in a temperate climate?
It's not like my yard has any shortage of edible plants already growing in it. We have
( Raspberry )
( Pokeweed )
( Oak )
( Mulberry )
( Wild Grape )
( Dandelion )
( chokecherry )
( Black Walnut )
( Violets )
( Maple )
( Indian strawberry )
( and Plantain )
already growing in abundance, plus a pecan tree and wild mint and wild onions and some sort of volunteer rosebushes and usually some edible mushrooms at some point, and that's just the ones I can ID offhand in a quick turn around the yard in May--
But I'd kind of like to grow something that has a slightly higher calories-to-prep-time ratio than most of the wild edibles do. Anyone have any recommendations for growing vegetables under a forest?
