What you can grow in shady spaces or a Hole In The Ground

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Light is everything when you are trying to grow plants.  A minimum of four hours of sun light is required to grow most anything.  There are some new seeds being developed for three hours of sunlight. This is very challenging when you live in apartments with other tall buildings around, trees, and are trying to  grow in small spaces. I have overcome this problem by installing shop lights with grow light bulbs, in my hole in the ground as I call my patio.  I had two installed. As my patio is covered I hung two inexpensive shop lights which I bought at K-mart for around $20. a piece. Then had to pay my maintenance man another $20. to hang them. I have already planted several kinds of plants. Last  year I did lobellia,

This year I am going to try more leafy stuff like:

Leafy crops

Most leafy crops (and there is a huge choice now  in many seed catalogues) grow well in less sun including

• chard
• kale
• spinach
• sorrel
• most Asian leaves, including Chinese cabbage, the mustards, pak choi and mizuna.
• most salad leaves including lettuce, rocket, winter purslane, land cress, and lambs lettuce.

I have not given up on heirloom tomatoes but I started them in January and they are still not very big. I am willing to run the grow lights up to 8 hours a day.

3 – 4 hours sun

If your space gets 3 – 4 hours sun, your choice is restricted but there is still a lot you can grow. Good choices include:

Leafy crops

Most leafy crops (and there is a huge choice now  in many seed catalogues) grow well in less sun including

• chard
• kale
• spinach
• sorrel
• most Asian leaves, including Chinese cabbage, the mustards, pak choi and mizuna.
• most salad leaves including lettuce, rocket, winter purslane, land cress, and lambs lettuce.

Herbs

These herbs are all well suited to less sun:

• parsley
• mint
• chives and garlic chives
• lovage
• coriander
• chervil
• wild garlic

• rosemary
• dill
• basil
• sage
• thyme
• bay
• oregano

Shoots

• pea
•  broad bean
• sunflowers
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• chickpea
• sweetcorn
• wheat
• buckwheat
• radish

• rhubarb (in a big pot)

. Mint and Basil

Judi Singleton is the owner operator of bejewelu.com where you can dress the whole family for less