![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/shade-garden.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe good, the not too bad and the ugly. By request.<\/p>\n
Several readers have asked to see more photos of my vegetable (mostly) garden, including closeups, so today’s the day. Due to tall trees on the east and west side of my yard, my garden has shade issues. It’s recommended that vegetable gardens have an absolute minimum of six hours of direct sunlight per day and most of mine only gets about 5 1\/2, so my garden is a little slow to to get into full production. But in the end, most of it produces well.<\/p>\n
Shade issues also cause problems with photography. For most of the day, high contrast (a mix of shade and direct sunlight) makes photography difficult in my back yard so most of these photos were taken in early morning or in the evening in full shade.<\/p>\n
If you have zero interest in gardening, I wouldn’t blame you in the least if you moved on.<\/p>\n
For those of you still here, let’s get on with it.<\/p>\n
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The west end of my garden is partly beneath two large Catalpa trees so I call this part of it my “shade garden”. I only plant shade-tolerant varieties here.<\/p>\n
From top to bottom:<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/regular-cucumbers-and-zinnias.jpg\")
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“Regular” cucumbers. I planted them late so I just harvested my first “cuke” of this variety yesterday. It was very good. The zinnias in the background were planted to attract hummingbirds. It’s working.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/lemon-cucumbers.jpg\")
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Lemon cucumbers – I’ve been eating them for about a week. They’re my favorite variety of cucumber. They don’t taste like lemons, they just look like them. If you look carefully, you can see one of them peeking out at you (it’s still small and mostly green).<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/peppers.jpg\")
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Peppers of three varieties – This year I made a rookie mistake with my peppers and planted them too close to other plants. They’re getting too much shade and not producing very well. At least not yet.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/eggplant.jpg\")
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Eggplant – four plants that I planted too close together. But they’re forgiving so they’re beginning to produce, as you can see at bottom right.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/zucchini-and-sage.jpg\")
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Zucchini – I swear my zukes are on steroids. I can’t eat them and give them away fast enough and the plant is huge and still growing. As you can see, it’s about to engulf my Sage as if it were a giant amoeba. I believe that even a gardener with a black thumb could grow zucchini and grow it well.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/tomatoes-early-girl.jpg\")
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Early Girl Tomatoes – So far it’s been a great year for tomatoes and I believe the 7 yards of compost I worked into my garden this spring has something to do with that. My five Early Girl plants didn’t get very big but they must have put most of their resources into fruit production because they’re loaded with tomatoes.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/early-girl-tomatoe-plant-closeup.jpg\")
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Here you can only see about a third of the tomatoes on this small Early Girl (some leaves are curling a little because of heat stress.) Last night the larger red one in the center sacrificed itself for the BLT I had for dinner.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/tomatoes-other.jpg\")
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I also planted four tomatoes of other varieties. Most of them are huge but they’re only now beginning to produce much fruit. The Sweet 100 on the left is over 6′ tall. I graze on the Sweet 100’s while I’m watering the garden. Yum.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/spaghetti-squash-1.jpg\")
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Spaghetti Squash – this year I planted a bush variety of this winter squash so it wouldn’t invade my entire garden, but it still takes up a lot of space. It’s producing well though.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/pole-beans-1.jpg\")
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Pole Beans (green beans) – I had trouble getting these beans to germinate so I had to replant them twice. As a result, they still haven’t even begun to flower, much less produce any beans. But once they start they should produce until first frost.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/amaranth.jpg\")
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Amaranth – I grow Amaranth every year for privacy and because birds feed on those tiny seeds in late summer and fall. Right now it’s just beginning to flower but it won’t be long until each plant produces multiple flower spikes. Several of these Amaranth are over 10′ tall.<\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/view-of-garden-from-patio.jpg\")
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Yes, the kind of gardening I do is a lot of work but dang, it’s satisfying. And nurturing, in more ways than one. This is my evening view of my garden from my patio. I sit there in the evenings with a pre-dinner drink in my hand and just soak it all in – including the songbirds at my seed feeder and the hummingbirds at my zinnias and nectar feeder.<\/p>\n
Audrey Hepburn famously said “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.” These days very little gives me any hope for the future. But my garden does.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n
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