Shade Is Not the End of the Story

Most vegetable-growing books assume you have a sunny plot with at least six hours of direct light a day. Plenty of British gardens do not. Between north-facing walls, mature hedges, fence panels and the neighbour's sycamore, a good chunk of the average back garden spends much of the day in shadow. The good news is that shade is a spectrum, not a verdict.

It helps to know what you are dealing with. Full sun means six hours or more of direct light in midsummer. Partial shade is roughly three to six hours, or a full day of dappled light. Deep shade is under three hours, or permanent gloom. The quality of that light matters as much as the quantity. Dappled shade under a deciduous tree, which shifts through the day and disappears entirely in winter, is far kinder to vegetables than the flat, cold shadow cast by a north-facing brick wall or a dense evergreen.

Before you plant anything, spend a day watching. Check the patch at nine in the morning and again at three in the afternoon. You may find that one end gets a decent burst of midday sun while the other stays grey all day. That difference alone will shape what you grow where.

Leafy Crops: The Reliable Performers

If you are harvesting leaves rather than fruit, you are asking far less of the plant. It does not need to build up the energy reserves required to ripen tomatoes or swell a courgette, so it copes with considerably less sunshine. Leafy crops are the backbone of any shaded vegetable patch.

• Salad leaves: loose-leaf lettuces, rocket, mizuna, mustard greens and land cress all crop happily in partial shade.
• Spinach and chard: both are excellent, and perpetual spinach will keep going for months if you pick steadily.
• Kale and cavolo nero: hardy, productive and tolerant of lower light, though growth will be slower.
• Lamb's lettuce and wild rocket: genuinely useful in shade, and they shrug off cold.
• Pak choi and oriental greens: quick to mature, ideal for a partly shaded raised bed.

Sow little and often rather than in one big row. Because everything grows more slowly in shade, you will not need as many successional sowings as a sunny plot, but you will still want fresh leaves every few weeks. One real advantage: shaded salad crops are much less likely to bolt in a hot spell.

Roots, Herbs and the Awkward Customers

Root vegetables are a reasonable second string. They will not win prizes, but they will feed you.

• Beetroot, radishes and turnips: the most forgiving of the roots, especially in a bed that gets a few hours of midday sun.
• Carrots: slower to size up, but usable if you choose a shorter variety and keep the soil loose.
• Leeks and garlic: both tolerate light shade and will sit in the ground over winter without complaint.
• Herbs: mint, chives, parsley, chervil, sorrel and wild garlic all prefer a bit of shelter from blazing sun.

Be realistic about what will not work. Tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, courgettes, squash, runner beans and sweetcorn all need serious sunshine. Plant them in shade and you will get handsome foliage and almost no crop, which is a dispiriting use of a whole summer.

Building Soil That Holds Its Own

Shaded ground tends to be colder, wetter and slower to warm in spring, and it is often compacted by tree roots or years of neglect. Fix the soil and you have solved half the problem.

Drainage comes first. If water sits on the surface after rain, build a raised bed rather than fighting the ground. A bed 20 to 25cm deep, filled with a mix of topsoil and well-rotted compost, will lift roots clear of the worst of it. Fork in coarse grit or bark if the soil is heavy clay.

Then add organic matter generously. Leafmould, garden compost and well-rotted manure improve structure, hold moisture through dry spells and feed the soil life that does the real work. Mulch 5 to 8cm deep around established plants to suppress weeds and keep the surface from caking. Do not dig or walk on the bed when it is wet, as you will undo a season's worth of improvement in one afternoon.

Feed modestly. Soft, sappy growth forced on by too much nitrogen is a magnet for aphids and mildew. A light dressing of blood, fish and bone in spring is usually plenty.

Making the Most of Every Ray

A few cheap tricks can squeeze more light out of a difficult corner.

• Paint a nearby wall or fence a pale colour, or fix a sheet of reflective material behind the bed, to bounce light back onto the plants.
• Angle a raised bed slightly towards the sunniest direction, even by 10 or 15 degrees.
• Use containers on castors so you can chase the sun around the garden through the day.
• Grow vertically. Climbing peas, dwarf beans and trained fruit reach up into brighter air above the shadow line.
• Lift the canopy. Thinning the lower branches of a tree, checking first who owns it and avoiding nesting season, can transform the light below.

Managing the Shade-Specific Problems

Damp, sheltered conditions suit slugs and snails, and they will find your leafy crops quickly. Nematode treatments in early autumn, beer traps and a torchlit evening patrol all work, and a gravel or wool barrier around young plants helps too.

Watch for powdery and downy mildew on crowded leaves, and thin your sowings properly to keep air moving. Water deeply and less often rather than little and often, aiming at the soil rather than the foliage. Keep on top of weeds, which compete fiercely for limited light, and remember that a modest harvest from a shady corner is still a harvest worth having.