Hello, welcome to your forum, I here am new,

So, I'm going to get serious with gardening. I plant in shade. Mostly shade, 4-6 hours of light a day and that is early to late afternoon. I don't do well. That's the first problem. But that's not what I'm here to talk with you about. I'm looking for information on intercropping, at least that's what I think it's called. Rather than have nice rows of all the same type of veggie, it's where you interplant different varieties either do to companion planting, spacing, or pest control. I didn't see much in the forum on intercropping but it might have another name.

The second thing I'm looking for information on is succession planting. It's where after my broccoli does really well until the oak trees leaf and then the broccoli does nothing and I leave it in the ground cause I failed rather than pull up the plants and plant a second crop that doesn't do well.

So. Any advice or leads to information on how to succeed at succession intercropping in the shade would be appreciated. :)

Not sure if there's a way to set my default info, but I'm in 6A if that helps.

First of all, welcome to Garden.org

Secondly, before you can intercrop or succession plant you are going to need to figure out what will grow in your area. Broccoli usually doesn't need much sun so if that is failing you've got a real challenge. I'm not an expert on low light gardening but here's what I would suggest.
a. Find a way to get more light on your garden. That might mean trimming trees and shrubs. It might also mean finding another spot for your garden.
b. Plant a wide variety of shade tolerant vegetables (you can find many lists on the web) and see which ones do well.

Once you solve the shade problem you can tackle intercropping and succession planting.

I could have given more info but didn't know if this was a discussion or just a here's a link to an article... :)

I've been gardening in the same spot for 20 years. I have a LOT of success with peppers, some ok success with tomatoes but I'm building another raised bed in the section of the yard that gets more light for the tomatoes. Zukes of all things don't do that well. Black raspberries are good, strawberries I get some but the plants don't get really large like Upick farms. Mint and herbs do great. Beans I get a decent harvest from. Not sure why I can't get broccoli and cauliflower to mature. I get small heads on broccoli and even smaller on cauliflower and then it turns purple. Egg plants do ok as well. Volunteer gourds do GREAT. As do weeds but I have them under control. For some reason carrots don't do well. Lettuces do ok but bugs eat them. Spinach does ok. So I can grow a lot of stuff, I'd just say that the plants don't do as well as they would with more light.

You'll have the best success in part sun with leafy vegetables. Cabbage family (cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower, bok choy), snap peas, lettuce, and similar plants all do well in part shade. Plants that produce a large amount of fruit relative to leaf cover will not like part shade. Tomatoes, squash, melons, etc. These things, in my experience, need as much full sun as they can possibly get.

Have you tried planting broccoli or cauliflower in the late summer or early fall? Sometimes these plants prefer cooler fall weather too, keeps them from bolting/flowering.

I could have given more info but didn't know if this was a discussion or just a here's a link to an article... :)

I've been gardening in the same spot for 20 years. I have a LOT of success with peppers, some ok success with tomatoes but I'm building another raised bed in the section of the yard that gets more light for the tomatoes. Zukes of all things don't do that well. Black raspberries are good, strawberries I get some but the plants don't get really large like Upick farms. Mint and herbs do great. Beans I get a decent harvest from. Not sure why I can't get broccoli and cauliflower to mature. I get small heads on broccoli and even smaller on cauliflower and then it turns purple. Egg plants do ok as well. Volunteer gourds do GREAT. As do weeds but I have them under control. For some reason carrots don't do well. Lettuces do ok but bugs eat them. Spinach does ok. So I can grow a lot of stuff, I'd just say that the plants don't do as well as they would with more light.

I am not much help re: gardening in shade. Our summers here are hot enough that there has to be some shade on my raised beds or the crops won't grow.

Every area has its' own unique issues when gardening.

On intercropping, I have recently stumbled on two successes. One was interplanting my potatoes with bush beans. They were both very productive. The other is developing this winter. I plant my multiplier onions in October and they will grow through winter for a spring harvest. Well apparently last winters lettuce crop seeded freely in that raised bed. I have a nice stand of lettuce growing in among the onion plants. Neither one seems to protest sharing the space. I know you can't plant in winter but perhaps that type of intercropping might work for you in your planting season.

I had read an article on intercropping and plant compatibility. I will try to find it and link it here.

When you mentioned your lettuce crop being eaten by bugs, do you know what kind? If so, perhaps interplanting herbs or flowers to repel the bugs may be the answer.

Good luck with the new bed. Please stay in touch here.

pod said:I am not much help re: gardening in shade. Our summers here are hot enough that there has to be some shade on my raised beds or the crops won't grow.

Every area has its' own unique issues when gardening.

On intercropping, I have recently stumbled on two successes. One was interplanting my potatoes with bush beans. They were both very productive. The other is developing this winter. I plant my multiplier onions in October and they will grow through winter for a spring harvest. Well apparently last winters lettuce crop seeded freely in that raised bed. I have a nice stand of lettuce growing in among the onion plants. Neither one seems to protest sharing the space. I know you can't plant in winter but perhaps that type of intercropping might work for you in your planting season.

I had read an article on intercropping and plant compatibility. I will try to find it and link it here.

When you mentioned your lettuce crop being eaten by bugs, do you know what kind? If so, perhaps interplanting herbs or flowers to repel the bugs may be the answer.

Good luck with the new bed. Please stay in touch here.

I like the idea of potato and bush bean intercropping. I have tried watermellon and potato in the past, but a neighbor's tree shaded my potato bed and I didn't have much luck. However, the neighbor's trimmed the lower limbs off the tree middle of last summer so I'm hoping to try again this year. Looking for a variety of potato and watermellon to plant.

For some reason my onions do no do well. The green onions do ok, but I can't get a large onion to grow at all due to the bulbs being dug up or or something else causing them harm. I may try the onion with lettuces though.

The bug issue was with broccoli. Not sure if that changes the equation. Not sure what the bug was. Never saw it even though I looked on the leaves and under them. Holes all over the leaves.

I've not grown broccoli so am no help there. This link https://www.gardeningknowhow.c... suggests some herbs to interplant with broccoli that serve to repel insects.

pod said:I've not grown broccoli so am no help there. This link https://www.gardeningknowhow.c... suggests some herbs to interplant with broccoli that serve to repel insects.

Thanks for the link! I find it funny that broccoli do not like to be planted around cauliflower. One thing that I've always wondered when it comes to companion planting is how close is close enough? A foot? Twenty feet?

thommesM said:

Thanks for the link! I find it funny that broccoli do not like to be planted around cauliflower. One thing that I've always wondered when it comes to companion planting is how close is close enough? A foot? Twenty feet?

Eh a lot of this polyculture/companion planting guide stuff is utterly wrong. There's nothing wrong with planting any sort of brassicas next to each other. I'm guessing when a guide says not to plant them close to each other, it's some misled person who thinks "oh more brassica in one spot, must mean there'll be way more cabbage moths" or something like that. There's absolutely no reason not to grow broccoli and cauliflower together. I've done it before.

WElcome to these forums !
You may find more information in the Companion plants forum or in the Permaculture forum too.

I'm surprised to hear your carrots did not do well--- Typically, root crops will do good in the area that is the most shaded, although even these crops need some minimal amount of sunlight. I had to experiment with carrots to find ones that did good in the soil in my area. Since I have plenty of garden area, I am only concerned with rotation each year and planning around the planting of peanuts. Peanuts take up their area for the growing season from May to October .

EddieG said:I'm surprised to hear your carrots did not do well--- Typically, root crops will do good in the area that is the most shaded, although even these crops need some minimal amount of sunlight. I had to experiment with carrots to find ones that did good in the soil in my area. Since I have plenty of garden area, I am only concerned with rotation each year and planning around the planting of peanuts. Peanuts take up their area for the growing season from May to October .

Eh it may be that the carrots do not get enough water. By the time the carrots get going the brassica are usually being destroyed . by some pest and I give up all hope on the garden. I'm determined to make the commitment this year though. I started with prepping the beds last fall with a compost layer and then a 2-3" shredded leaf mulch layer. So A+ for effort so far. Lets see what I end up with as a final grade.