Yesterday I wrote about the idea of the forest garden, a garden that’s dominated by trees. Forest gardens have a lot of advantages. A tree provides shelter for your garden, shelter that lettuce just can’t quite make on its own. It moderates wind, rain and sun. However, it also creates its own microclimate, something that you need to learn how to garden with if your vegetable garden contains trees.
Trees also build soil. They create a wonderful mulch of leaves. If you have a lot of coniferous trees, you may need to adjust the pH of your soil if you want to grow traditional vegetable crops. Conifer needles are acidic, and vegetables like alkaline soil. Add some lime, and your crops will thank you.
Many of us with trees in our garden wonder exactly what we can grow in all of this shade and challenging soil conditions. There are many things that you can grow in a forest garden, and greens are one of the best. Most greens love dappled sunlight, and trees provide the shelter that they need to have a long and prolific growing season.
Put lettuce into a warm and bright area and it’s very happy at the beginning of the year. You might get an early fall crop as well. However, during the summer, the warmth triggers the lettuce to bolt, or go to seed. Planting it in dappled sunlight allows the lettuce to enjoy a cool, damp environment for a little longer, and it slows down the bolting.
Many Asian greens like mizuna and bok choy also love cooler temperatures and can handle some dappled light. These greens are perfect for a summer salad or stir fry. Mustard greens are another heat-intolerant plant, and these spicy little greens are excellent in stir fries and curries. Onions also tolerate dappled shade very well. Choose regular onions or grow chives – they love the shade!
If you enjoy tea, plants like mint and cicely give a lovely flavor to your infusions. Sweet cicely is a lovely, fern-like and licorice-flavored plant.
If you’re creating a winter garden, choosing a sheltered area around a tree is not a bad idea. You need to make sure that your plants get enough light and stay away from the area at the drip line, where snow may slide off the tree. However, a tree can provide a little bit of extra shelter that may allow your greens to survive through the winter. Kale and swiss chard are both excellent winter greens and should be planted now.
Do you grow greens in the shade? What are your favorites?
Image Credit: djnorway