Not the best location

[growyourown76]

Hey guys,

New to the forum but I have a lot in the ground right now (onions, garlic, spinach, lettuce, tons of fruit trees, and peppers still from early this year) my question is..... our home doesn't get full sun due to large pine trees on our back hill that "belong to the city," my onion seedlings, garlic, and spinach get light all day, but only get direct sun for about 4 hours. Will my onions and garlic turn out? or will they be wimpy little plants that wont produce much of anything.... Thanks everyone!

Matt

[rainbowgardener]

Spinach and lettuce do fine in part shade areas. They are cool weather crops and will benefit from shade when things warm up.

Onions and garlic will be OK if they get 3-4 hours of direct sun a day, though they may be a little smaller than they would with more sun.

Peppers and tomatoes will not produce in those conditions. I used to have a very shady backyard, where I was before. I tried growing tomatoes anyway. The plants survived, though they didn't really thrive, but they produced almost no tomatoes.

I'm not sure about your fruit trees; I think it depends on specifically what fruit. But I would think they would produce more with more sun.

All of this depends on where you are located. If you are in TX, everything will benefit from some protection from fierce sun. If you are in MN, lots of things will not make it without full sun.

[growyourown76]

Thanks for the advice! Because of the shifting of the sun during the summer months, the sun is right over the top of my yard and it gets sun all day. But for my winter crops the sun shifts behind the pine trees and is shaded for much of the day. My peach tree this year EXPLODED with peaches, so many in fact the tree could not support what it had produced so I have to pick off over 60 peaches before they were much bigger than a walnut. Blueberries also gave enough berries that my wife and I ate off of 2 plants for 3 months. I also have a fig tree and orange tree that have done very well. It is the winter crops I get anxiety about lol

[imafan26]

Leaf crops should do ok with at least 4 hours of sun. Onions and garlic are growing tops now and need enough light for that but will need longer days of daylight to bulb up. If you are growing green onions or scallions, they don't need to have as many hours of full sun.