johnnyad
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Joined: Wed Apr 29, 2009 6:45 pm
Location: Chester, CT

Garden area no good? Input please.

Here is my album of pics I just took of the two areas where I want to plant out vegetable garden. Sorry for the less than stellar pics, my wife has the good camera so I had to use one of the kids :P

https://s234.photobucket.com/albums/ee71/mortation/garden/

I took the pictures at about 6:30 at night. I live in south eastern CT only have 1/2 an acre of land and limited space to put a garden considering placement of the garage, a giant spruce tree, and our septic system :(

So whats everyone's thoughts? Is it going to be hopeless once the trees bloom?

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BrianSkilton
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Location: South Dakota

It looks like an alright spot....there are quite a few trees growing however. You could try planing things that like shad throughout the day. All plants need some sun, so it depends on how many hours of light you get in that area. Plant mostly shade-resistant vegetables in the less sunny spots like beans, peas, potatoes, pumpkin, summer squash. Find the brighter spots in the garden for your pepper and tomato plants (if you grow them). I would say it isn't impossible to garden in shady areas, you just have to make the best of what areas of the garden get more light, and plant accordingly. Good Luck, and happy growing! :o

The Helpful Gardener
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Location: Colchester, CT

Hey Johnny,

Chester, eh? Very nice. I LOVE Restaurant Du Vilages (wish I could afford it more often...)

The skunk cabbage right behind it tells me that will be red maple swamp, and maples throw heavy duty shade. This is NOT prime time gardening turf by any stretch. I think you are going to be dissappointed with return on investment (time and money) as limited light will yield limited results...

Can you use containers closer to the house (where I thought I caught one of the few glimpses of sun in the montage)?

HG (Colchester)

2cents
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Location: Ohio

looks like shade from the south and west.

The shade from the west can be okay, as Brian has indicated.
But if there is shade all day on this spot, little if any veggies will grow.
Do you get daytime sun? morning? noon? early afternoon?

You must get 8-10 hrs of sun for most veggies.

A friend has a similar setup, but has limited morning sun.
All day starting around 10 AM till the last hour before sunset. His is doing okay.

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jal_ut
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If that is what you have, give it a whirl. It looks like there was grass growing there? If it will grow grass, it will grow crops. Keep in mind the summer sun is high overhead, so those plots should get several hours of good sunshine.

The Helpful Gardener
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Lots of native hard and fine fescues here that will limp along with little light, jal. Wisps of grass mean nothing; I have a spot under pines in the yard with more than that, and I am about twenty miles northeast of johnny...

JA, if you really want to make this work you have some tree felling to do. Jal raises a good point; there are some spots with much better grass, which means more sun, therefore better suited. You could move your stakes...

There is still the container idea...

HG

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

If the swingsets are in the sun, you could move THEM into the shady area. My kids' playground equipment is in the shaded of Willow Oak and Sweet Gum trees on the SE side. Unless it's muggy-hot, kids can play there all day in the summer time until the westering sun pours in. :wink:

The Helpful Gardener
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Children DO adapt to shade, especially in the hot months (I thought Wednesday WAS the start of the hot months... talked to somenone in Florida yesterday who tells me they have not yet hit 90, but we have...global wierding)

HG
Last edited by The Helpful Gardener on Fri May 01, 2009 11:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

kylie77
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Joined: Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:35 pm
Location: Kamloops, BC

I have limited sun in my backyard prob about 4 hours a day. Last year was our first time ever trying to grow veg. We knew nothing, so the soil wasen't good (just added a bit of topsoil, and mushroom manure), threw in some seeds and a few plants and waited to see what would happen! We didn't have a clue what was a plant and what was a weed so didn't even weed for AGES. Even in these conditions we had a ton of green beans, peas, some brocoli, a couple cobs of corn, lots of basil, dill, and mint. Oh and LOTS of baby carrots. They were planted far too thickly, we didn't thin or anything. We also had a TON of tomatoes from a couple of plants that looked very sad when we started out (had to learn how to make relish!). The tomatoes were out front in the sun though. Anyway my point is that you probably will be able to grow stuff. If you can't move your garden to a sunnier area then I would go for it anyway. You'll never know until you try! Also definately try containers if you have a sunny space for them. We're going nuts this year and trying all sorts although will put as much as possible in the front of the house. We're using a lot of containers along with our limited garden space to make the most of things!

Good luck!

cynthia_h
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It's hard for me to believe that a homeowner with 1/2 an acre of land would be unable to locate space in which to plant satisfactory tomatoes, etc.

A Square Foot Garden, for example, can be grown in as little as 4' x 4'.

DH and I have scratched and scraped together 96 square feet of raised beds for growing veggies, and enjoyed lots of zucchini, tomatoes, kale, broccoli raab (rapini), chard, spinach, turnips, what-have-you from last August through a couple of weeks ago.

Mind you, we didn't eat 100% or even 50% from the garden--it's just veggies--but we definitely increased our intake of fresh, organic produce. :D

Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9



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