Anyone interested in trading seed varieties already suited to growing in shade?
My growing conditions are mostly or partly shaded the majority of day. I have pole beans, flourcorn, sweetcorn, cucerbita moschata, tomatoes, peppers, cowpeas, that all thrive for me in the shade. I’m having trouble growing muskmelons and eggplant to maturity, but any seed exchange would be a meaningful contribution to my gene pools.
I will also have several varieties from GRIN seed bank that seem promising available to trade in small quantities in a few weeks.
I’m thinking on this. At this point, I have nothing to contribute, so I will not take advantage of you. But I did try growing pole beans in the shade of a tree summer before last, and felt it a fail. But I think I will try again, and then I will have something to share. My main problem might be the competition with the tree for moisture. I am not giving them supplemental watering, so I’m not sure which plants would fare the best with the dryness. I’m thinking the tomatoes are a no, but off hand, not sure which of the others are most drought tolerant. They will get a deep mulch, but only the water which the sky provides. Do you have insight on this? And I see you are in Iowa, how long is your growing season? It might be pretty close to mine in Nebraska.
I’m growing in partial shade and am interested. My selection of crops is very similar.
Have you tried other species of squash? Moschata performs the best for me every year, by far. And I also struggle with muskmelons. My muskmelons and maxima squash have both been 4 years of disappointment in a row. Vigna beans also seem to be performing better than P. vulgaris in the shade, but I want to push the P. vulgaris because I like them better.
Meanwhile chile peppers have been surprisingly easy. Buena mulata and fish pepper are standouts. These are african american heirloom varieties local to my area, and they grow fabulously here. I have yet to see the shade tolerance of these 2 varieties discussed anywhere, but it’s exceptional.
I grow in a foggy coastal environment, where even “full sun” is often more like shade. I have had some success with eggplant and muskmelons, have a small amount of seed I could share on those. I’ve been working on peppers for a few years now and my seeds will be in the Seed Share mix this year.
Hi Michael, I have a lot of shade areas too… I’ve been experimenting with edible/medicinal perennials, if that’s of any interest to you. I haven’t collected seeds from these yet, but they do beautifully in part/full shade:
American spikenard/Aralia rasemosa
Good king Henry/Blitum bonushenricus
Boneset/Eupatorium perfoliatum
Sweet cicely/Myrrhis odorata
pink flowering raspberry/Rubus odoratus
Ramps/Allium tricoccum
Various hostas
Many mints
There are more that don’t come to mind yet. Also violet makes a beautiful shade ground cover and is entirely edible… Not to mention celery, parsley and arugala that give bigger leaves in the shade…
If you’re interested, we could plan an exchange of roots for the spring or seeds in the fall.
I have and had mixed results. Maximas will produce fruit about 1 in 5 plants for me right now. Pepos have been much more forgiving than Maximas, but lack the flavor I want as mature fruit. So I reserve my pepos for eating fresh and small. I reliably get 2-6 fruit per vine for my Moschatas in full shade.
I’ve sent in about 2 pounds of my pole beans into the seed share albeit a little late, so they may or may not be in the seed mix this year. Several GRIN accessions and my Red Cow pole bean. All did great this year in my shaded flourcorn patch.
I don’t water anything in my garden with the exception of just getting direct seeded plants to germinate if we’re having a dry spell. I grow my tomatoes in part shade in between the canopy of walnut and oak trees. I don’t know your soil type so I can’t say for sure. I have clay bare minimum surface to 6 feet down so as long as my plants have good root development, they don’t suffer much during a month or 3 of drought, but establishment is key for that root growth. As soon as I transplant I’ll drown and mulch with half composted mulched leaves so they can establish before the soil dries out.
Certain trees and plants can release hormones and toxins the prevent sensitive plants from growing well. Walnut trees for example release jugalon into the surrounding soil which causes many plant families trouble. So it could be a compatibility issue with the tree and what varieties of bean you grew.
Trial and error is the best teacher so don’t give up if something doesn’t work right some years. Before I discovered landracing, my strategy was research first and planting as many varieties as possible. The research bit was the most important because blindly picking varieties is meaningless if you leave chance to pick your desired traits for you. You either get lucky or waste 3 years finding the perfect jugalon and drought resistant tomato. But if you reach out to people who have been in the same boat, you might stumble upon 4 different varieties or landraces you can select and cross from to make your perfect variety.
This year I scoured GRINs cucumis melo varieties and picked out 7 from northerly regions(Maine, northern USSR, Michigan, etc) for early maturing fruit and mixed disease resistance. Also working off the theory that landraces from more northern regions are more likely to carry shade tolerance, as the farther north you go in its growing range, the more forested the lands likely were at some point in its individual planting history. I’m also increasing population size of my planting to increase the number of dice I’m rolling to see better chances of success.