Low sun varieties

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

That looks good. I'll show it to her and see what she thinks.

I'm not good enough at carpentry to build something like that (I'm really bad at carpentry) but I could probably work something out with people who are.

Thanks,
Even though I feel it is a home owners right to have a garden in the front it is also their responsibility to keep it looking nice.
I dreamed up built the whole thing by myself.
It is becoming the trend to turn yards into gardens here in Texas more and more.
The people that fight against it here are becoming dinosaurs.
Water is just too valuable to waste on grass.

Worth

[Lee]

Perhaps an arborist could come out and tell you that selective pruning of the Locust tree would be good for it and the fact that the selected branches are the ones shading your garden makes it a win-win!

Good luck!

Lee

P.S. My dad grows his tomatoes (I provide the seedlings) with about 4-5 hours of direct sun. He typically has more and larger fruit than I get with my 12 hours of direct sun. I attribute mostly to his soil, which may be more critical than the amount of sun.
Containers can also be a good compromise, and there are plenty of great dwarf tomatoes that do excellent in containers.

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by Lee

Perhaps an arborist could come out and tell you that selective pruning of the Locust tree would be good for it and the fact that the selected branches are the ones shading your garden makes it a win-win!

Good luck!

Lee

P.S. My dad grows his tomatoes (I provide the seedlings) with about 4-5 hours of direct sun. He typically has more and larger fruit than I get with my 12 hours of direct sun. I attribute mostly to his soil, which may be more critical than the amount of sun.
Containers can also be a good compromise, and there are plenty of great dwarf tomatoes that do excellent in containers.

There are plans to get an arborist out here this fall to selectively prune the tree

Interesting, so I suppose the part of my garden growing on my neighbor's property should be viable

The only direct sun I get in the back yard is not actually on my property. I didn't realize it when I put the raised bed in because there's a depression there that everyone assumes is the property line. I looked up where the property line was located because I was planning to expand my garden and I discovered that my garden was already over the line. oops...

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Thanks,
Even though I feel it is a home owners right to have a garden in the front it is also their responsibility to keep it looking nice.
I dreamed up built the whole thing by myself.
It is becoming the trend to turn yards into gardens here in Texas more and more.
The people that fight against it here are becoming dinosaurs.
Water is just too valuable to waste on grass.

Worth

Water availability is a big part of what got me into aeroponics. It takes 98% less water to grow a plant aeroponically. There's just a tremendous amount of startup equipment you need and there are a few ways you can have a catastrophic failure.

One of the ways I plan to cram more tomatoes into the good sun of the front yard is by building an Aero unit and training the plants to trellises. From looking at your rig I think it is in my best interest to build something near the trellis to make it look a little prettier. I also spray painted the areo rig for cosmetic reasons (the best color for it would be white but I'm making it brown or black.

[bower]

Originally Posted by carolyn137

Prudence Purple, ?????

My post is not relevant to the initial question but I couldn't help asking Bower if using the name Prudence Purple instead of Prudens Purple indicates a revival of that now very old heated discussion that went on and on in the SSE Yearbooks for so many years and the consensus was Prudens Purple.

Carolyn

Eek! Can I blame the spell checker?
Truth be told, I didn't get a single fruit off it, so I have NOTHING TO REMEMBER IT BY!

[bower]

Worth, your example of taking over his sunny front garden with something beautifully built is the best!! Dang!!! Then he won't have a reason to find tomatoes that will grow in the dark!

[BigVanVader]

I want to get rid of the tree but my wife won't allow that.

Made me chuckle, When we bought our house I told my wife I was going to need to cut down and remove the stumps of several trees to make room for my garden and allow adequate light. She agreed but warned me not to touch the Pink Dogwood tree, which happened to be dead center of the back yard where I planned to put the garden....it had to go. I took it down while she was out of town. When she finally noticed it was gone I told her that I had forgotten and it had to go in order to put my garden beds in. Now we have a pink dogwood in the front yard AND 2 Jap maples (that was her price). Compromise is good but sometimes you have to force it and I take no prisoners when it comes to my garden

Moral of the story? Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

[HydroExplorer]

Originally Posted by BigVanVader

Made me chuckle, When we bought our house I told my wife I was going to need to cut down and remove the stumps of several trees to make room for my garden and allow adequate light. She agreed but warned me not to touch the Pink Dogwood tree, which happened to be dead center of the back yard where I planned to put the garden....it had to go. I took it down while she was out of town. When she finally noticed it was gone I told her that I had forgotten and it had to go in order to put my garden beds in. Now we have a pink dogwood in the front yard AND 2 Jap maples (that was her price). Compromise is good but sometimes you have to force it and I take no prisoners when it comes to my garden

Moral of the story? Sometimes it is better to ask forgiveness than permission.

Oh wow... I'm probably losing my man card for this but I'm definitely not going to do that. This is at least a 40 yr old tree. I mean it literally shades our entire back yard. She has told me at least 100 times that the tree stays. She also said this year that we need to trim it, so... As long as I get a professional arborist to do what he thinks is right I should get some sun back there. If he screws the tree up it's not on me.

That said, I ordered some sungold and black cherry seeds so I can get some nice starts going as next season approaches. I might grow a couple indoors over the winter to get an idea of how to support them.

I am going to use this restriction as fuel to justify upgrading my grow room substantially.

[Gardeneer]

Word, You are a landscape artist
And you have lots of trees to shade your plants. I think that is a plus in TX.

Back to sun:
This is my 4th year planting tomatoes with about 4 hours of direct mid day sun (11am -3pm), and some dappled sun, with daylight hours as long as 16 hours. AND I have been growing just about any variety that I want/like.
This is considering that we also have cool summers. So if you are in some parts of TX, CA. FL you can do even with less direct sun.

Gardeneer

[BlackBear]

I have an garden extension area that is in the Shade of a BIG Douglas Fir ...
(enough lumber to build a few houses !)
raising the extra bed 20" helps get more light in the whole season and hoping that the plants can grow and reach up for more light is key .

the area is marginal bright sunshine hours....but does produce ..if treated well.

In the shady "Site B " extension Box area

In this shady garden ........

Black cherry , Stupice , Moravesky Div, Fargo, Galina's, Matina,

Cosmonaut Volkov , Gregori's Altai .......... and even Sophie's Choice ,Bloody Butcher ..produced later than other areas with more sun ..but produced well.



Goliath Hybrid and Peacevine and Tigerella , Green grape did not tolerate this area well at all .

[HydroExplorer]

Thanks. I added those new ones to the list.

[Bipetual]

We just had three big locust trees trimmed and it cost an arm and a leg. But if you tell the guy you need more dappled light, he can do that. One tree guy (who wanted ALL FOUR arms and legs) kept repeating to me that the trees needed to be pruned and claimed it would cut down on the limbs twisting in the wind and damaging them. He also insisted it would allow grass to grow normally under them. I just hope you can find someone to do it for a reasonable price.

Not that doing it looked like fun, or even safe for that matter. I was quite relieved when the work was done and nobody got hurt. It was sort of funny, though, because these guys were using the saltiest imaginable language in their outside voices when they showed up. I thought it was kind of rude until they got out the chainsaws and I realized they have to yell over the noise all day just to do their jobs, not to mention that there was probably a little hearing loss involved..

[JRinPA]

I put some cherries in along the front of the house last year, in front of bushes and behind a sugar maple. Sunsugar and sweet 100. I don't know what I was thinking - I had just trimmed some branches in March and I didn't realize how little light that area received once the tree filled out in summer. Those plants received maybe an hour a day direct sun. They healthy and produced some fruit but they just did not fill out their cages nearly the way I was expecting.

This year we dug up some rose garden on the other side of the driveway. I have the same cherries planted there and the plants are dramatically fuller with foliage. I expect a great crop at that spot just 30 feet away from last year.

I really think you would be much better off planning and building a front yard bed rather than bothering with the shade. 5-6 hours is enough, 1-2 hours definitely did not seem adequate.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by HydroExplorer

Thanks for all the information. I'll buy some seeds and try some of these.

I agree that a well maintained vegetable garden is much more beautiful than a bunch of grass. I hate grass because I have to maintain it and it doesn't taste like tomatoes.

I've had to learn to make my ideas a little less extreme so she doesn't immediately reject them. We used to have a flagpole in full sun and I was thinking it would be really sweet to grow a tomato plant up the flagpole (too extreme). I am making headway and gaining more freedoms over time.

From my wife's perspective, she lets me garden in the back yard (in the shade) so she feels she is compromising. The part where my garden is getting sun for about 6 hours is not actually on our property but I didn't realize that when I did it and my neighbor hasn't made a fuss.

I'm making headway on the front yard and I fully intend to grow as many as 6 tomato plants there next year. I need to grow the shade stuff just in case. I'm also getting my 3yr old into gardening because as she gets older... Plans...

Save the flagpole for some beans. Tell your wife the tree needs pruning or it will weaken it and die.

[BigVanVader]

Just to add; my Sweet Ozark Orange tomato plants are in full shade from 3 pm on and seem to love it. The other varieties in that bed have lower production and have gotten spindly but the SOO keeps setting fruit and is still a vibrant green color. I just got my first ripe one yesterday with many more starting to blush.