Don't put full-sun plants where you've marked shade
As recorded: A full-sun species must not be placed in ground the gardener has marked as shaded.
Well established A person has checked it against its sources. If you skip this, you lose real yield. The planner warns you.
How it works
Photosynthesis. A crop whose light minimum is full sun is below that minimum in shade and underperforms. Shade you mark yourself (from a wall, fence or building the planner can't see) is separate from the shade the planner works out from taller neighboring plants.
What to do about it
Plant it somewhere you have not marked shaded, or use that ground for a species whose light minimum is part sun.
The evidence
Evidence: checked against 2 sources in the research-based literature.
The 2 sources
Sites must receive at least 8 hours of sun each day
Tolerates partial shade (4-6 hours of direct light/day) but grows well with full sun in spring and fall.
Read next
How this rule has changed
Every change is dated, newest first. The full record, with each reason, is in the data download.
- A person read the sources and confirmed it
- Details updated
- Wording made clearer
- Wording made clearer
- Advice on what to do added
- Added to the rules
More ways Milpa can help
When do I plant? · What grows well together? · Plan my garden · What can I plant now? · Something wrong in the garden? · Keep a garden diary · Heard a tip?
Cite this page
Milpa Gardens. “Don't put full-sun plants where you've marked shade.” Evidence grade: Well established. https://milpa.garden/rules/full-sun-species-not-be-placed-ground/
A garden planner built on graded evidence. Every claim states its evidence grade and links its sources on the page. Cite it with the grade, and add the date you read it.
Report a problem with this claim
How we grade evidence
- Well established
- The rule names its mechanism and is settled, by sources a person has read and checked or by plain arithmetic and geometry.
- Promising
- The mechanism is named and the literature backs it. A few questions are still open.
- A good hunch
- Plausible by its mechanism, but field studies are thin, so treat it as a lean.
- Contested
- The evidence points both ways, or no study has tested it, so the planner does not enforce it.
- Refuted
- The claim did not survive its sources. It is kept so the folklore can be answered.