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christinetschirgi@gmail.com's avatar

I have a question. So, I have a u shaped garden bed in my curb strip. The bottom of the U is at the south end and the opening at the top of the U is north. There is a tree at the top north end that ends up shading a small section of the top of the U but mostly on the West side. And on the west across the street there is a tall tree and tall buildings that block the sun partially from about 5 or 6 pm on.

I've been rotating my crops around the beds each year but I've never put tomatoes or cucumbers on the east side of the U. I grow them vertically, and placing them there would likely block sun from reaching the west leg of the U all morning and then the west side of the U would only get light till about 5 pm when it ducks behind that tree and eventually buildings. That seems like too little sun to grow most things but then I read this post and thought ... oh. East side for tall crops?

Basically, in my garden the tree across the street starts to filter the sun before it's low enough to cast a shadow from tall crops.

I have successfully grown Toms on the bottom east side of the U (summer 2020) but then my cucumbers didn't do well on the bottom west from partial shade (although I had a crap year for cucumbers in other non blocked spots so might have been unrelated) and both cucumber and toms did well on the west side of the U. (summer 2019) when shorter crops were on the East side.

How hard and fast of a rule is it to but the taller things on the East? If I do it - what can I grow with reduced sun in the other half of my garden?

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