Daylight required

General Fruit Growing
#1

After recently moving to a house that is surrounded by woods, I have become much more concerned with how many hours of light things require to be productive. I have a steep slope on the west side of the house that I don’t want to mow with the rider. It is getting about three hours of sun from noon to 3 pm. I am thinking of strawberries but don’t know if that is enough sun.

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#2

When I google it , it says six hours, I am half that. Any one with experience growing them with three?

#3

They will grow, but may not produce much and may be not the best in taste. But you definitely can “naturalize” them - let them just grow without much care and still get few berries. But you still will need to weed them until they create a full cover - some weeds doing much better with shade than strawberries.

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#4

Thank you galinas for the remarks.

#5

Maybe alpine strawberries would be a better bet.

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#6

Derby,
I meant to respond sooner but forgot. I grew strawberries in shade for 2-3 years. It got about 3 hours of sun, about 10 am - 1 pm. They grew and set fruit. But like @galinas said, they were not productive.

I should not say I grew them. I threw left over plants there and they grew.

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#7

Thanks mamuang, hum…, I’m going to have to put something there because I’m not going to weed eat that area every week.

#8

Have you looked into currants or gooseberries? If they’re allowed in your area, I’ve read they only want 1/2 day of full sun at most.

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#9

If only this is a problem, you can use ground cover. Vinca works on the hills in part sun very well.

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#10

I would prefer a ground cover that fruits :grinning:

#11

I don’t care for goose berries but currents may be an option, thanks seamonkey

#12

Black currants make great jam. Strawberries may not completely suppress weeds anyway. I used to grow strawberries and weeding them was always a pain. Now, I only have a few left and never get any fruit due to birds and chipmunks.

An even better option is to remove the trees :slight_smile: The hard part I have is convincing the neighbors to let me, as I’ve already gotten rid of mine, but there are always some near the property lines.

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