How to Grow Vegetables in Shade

The bed looks so nice and green with both direct-sown and planted leafy greens in my rows.

Who would have guessed that one of my best spots for leafy greens would be a perennial bed facing north?  The leafy greens seem to love it here, and I can start harvesting only a month after sowing the seeds!

The direct-sown cabbages are growing nicely. It's time to water them now though so that they can grow even bigger.

I originally planned to grow perennials in this shady spot, especially plantain lilies. They are edible, and I was looking forward to harvesting the tender young shoots. But during hot and dry periods, I prefer to use the space for vegetables that benefit from the cooler conditions.

Vegetables that grow in shade

I wanted to learn more about which vegetables grow well in shade. First, I removed the weeds and marked out the rows. Then I planted some leftover seedlings and sowed seeds directly in the bed.

Vegetables in my bed:

• chard
• leek
• purslane
• basil
• scallion
• parsley
• fennel
• turnip
• snap beans
• dill
• romaine lettuce
• carrot
• black kale
• cabbage
• choy sum
• komatsuna
• kailaan
• bok choy (pak choi)
• lettuce
• snow peas

Choosing vegetables that can handle less sunlight makes it easier to use shady areas in the garden. SeedsNow has a collection of varieties that grow well in shade.

Browse the shade-tolerant varieties here: Seeds that grow well in shade 

I decided to water my plants very sparsely. As you can see in the pictures, the plants grow in little depressions in the soil. This helps keep the water around the plants. I often put some kind of liquid fertilizer in the water too.

Read more: Growing vegetables in dry conditions

Black kale is a good vegetable to grow in shade. It grows better in the sunlight of course, but I'm not too fussed about getting nice-looking plants this time. It's all about the food now.

Large Romaine lettuce leaves, direct-sown in the bed. I'm going to thin them out later, so there's more room.

Chard grows really well in the shade. The plants stay lush and tender here and can provide plenty of leaves for later harvests.

Harvest a month after sowing

Fast-growing leafy vegetables can develop surprisingly quickly in a shady bed. Napa cabbage, lettuce and chard can all be harvested leaf by leaf, while onions may cope better here than in exposed beds during hot weather.

I wonder if the bed is going to look even lusher than this. I hope so! I started using greywater to water the beds on the north side, so the soil is getting some much-needed moisture now too. As you can see, I haven't covered the soil with any mulch. I didn't find any suitable material, so I just left the soil bare instead. Fresh grass clippings would have been perfect, but I'm not so lucky this time!

More about leafy greens: Broadcast-sowing leafy greens

I'm always happy when lettuce grows well in a spot where it has struggled before.

Komatsuna is a lovely mild cabbage that tastes a bit like bok choy (pak choi). The little holes were made by pests, but it's mainly an aesthetic issue.

It can be difficult to grow dill successfully, especially when it's dry outside. It thrives here in the shade though, but it's starting to show signs of needing more water and nutrients when the leaves get a bit dry and yellow.

Everything is growing really well, except perhaps my basil and to some extent purslane. This bed doesn't seem to be the best spot for fennel either. But I decided to leave it here and will harvest it stalk by stalk. The basil and purslane will have to be replaced by beets and a cabbage variety.

The kailaan grows really nicely, but it bolts early. I cut the plants, fertilize and water them and get several harvests of both leaves and shoots as they grow.

Several of the vegetables I grow here are hardy and cold-resistant. They can provide food well into the colder season if the conditions are right. Toward the end of summer, I sometimes move crops such as lettuce, parsley, chard and black kale to a more protected spot so I can continue harvesting for longer.

I will continue experimenting with shady growing spots. This particular bed is quite shallow because it lies on top of an old pathway, so taller and shallow-rooted crops are especially useful here. There are still plenty of vegetables left to try.

Do you grow in shade in your garden at home? What do you grow there?
/Sara Bäckmo