We have been in our new home for four months now, and I have started to think about the garden. For me, that amount of waiting qualifies as an almost heroic degree of self-restraint. In the abstract, I believe that I should probably inhabit the property for a year and observe before I begin to plant things. Patience would be especially warranted given that we currently have a toddler who does his level best to impede any project that requires one of his parents to have two hands and one mind available. But I’m itching to get going. Various reasons prompt me to start the garden soon, most notably that we have herbs, flowers, and even shrubs from the old house sitting in pots on the driveway, waiting to find their own forever home.

Considering that both our old home and our new reside in the Ozark mountains, their geographical features about couldn’t be more different. Our old home and garden sat in a relatively new development (circa 20 years old) on the top of an open, windy ridge. We had a lot of sun due to a lack of established trees, and corresponding difficulties with perennial weeds like bermuda grass. Most of the property was in a lawn, with little established landscaping. Surrounding our neighborhood was acres and acres of unmanaged second-growth forest, with a few scattered homes tucked away in the hills. My forthcoming book details the joys and the challenges of gardening in that setting.

Our new home dates to 1975 and rests at the foot of a heavily forested hill. A ravine with a city drainage ditch running through it consumes roughly half our large lot. Six large oak trees ring our property, while the ravine is forested with black walnuts and an understory of redbuds, dogwood, invasive bush honeysuckle, and vinca. The lawn is moss as much as anything, while the house features a few mixed borders (in a state of some neglect) at its feet, with iris, peony, crocus, and some shrubs. Although our street is heavily wooded and fairly quiet, we are in fact only a few blocks from the Branson Strip.

The difference in how we need to manage the site is stark. Our old garden had very little established on it except a truly staggering number of clumps of pampas grass. We could more or less make gardens wherever we wanted and benefit from a full day of sunlight. That full sun setting made it uncomplicated to choose what useful plants we would grow, as most fruits and vegetables benefit from plenty of sunlight; of course, weeds liked the sunlight too, and mowing was a constant chore. On our new property, the pace promises to be slower—I think I mowed three times in four months—but our plant options may be constrained by the shadiness of the site.

I’m still trying to determine just how shady our yard is and come to terms with what that means for our growing plans. Virtually all the property is shaded at some point during the day, either by our trees, our neighbors’, or the house. The patches of sunlight shift constantly throughout the day, so I don’t have much of a handle on just how shady everything is. It’s safe to say, though, that we don’t have any areas of full sun (six hours or more a day), and much of our plot lies in at least moderate shade. Since we especially love to grow food, and most food-bearing plants enjoy plenty of sun, we may have to find a new creativity in our gardening.

I’m determined to make an effort at growing some of the plants I love, but I also don’t want to throw myself into a doomed effort. We’ll do some calculated pruning and thinning of the existing vegetation, and eventually we might go so far as to take some of the big shade trees out (not all of the oaks look especially healthy) if we think that might buy us some garden space. First, though, I want to try growing some fruit that might perform adequately in the shade. I don’t need immense yields or perfect fruit, as long as I can get something off my plants.

I have been doing some research and arrived at a short list of plants that might work. My first attempt at growing fruit on our shady site will likely consist of these.

Pawpaws. This native species like shade when it’s young, and although full sun helps with fruit production on the mature trees, I think we might still be able to get a crop. Since I already found a wild seedling in our ravine, I’m confident that pawpaws will like our site.

Juneberries. I plan to put some of these ornamental shrubs in what might be our sunniest spot, just by our front deck, pairing them with herbs and native plants as a foundation planting.

Nanking cherries. These shrub cherries are highly adaptable and seem to be able to cope with some shade; also, since they are a tart fruit, a lack of sun to develop sugars won’t be as much of a concern.

Gooseberries, jostaberries, and currants. I already have several of these that I dug up and brought along from the old house. I have read that they tolerate some shade, and since they really prefer it cooler than our climate, I’m hoping they may still give some fruit in some of our shadiest spots. If these berries do well in those locations, I’m hoping that those spots will also let me grow some rhubarb, a favorite of mine that—since it comes from Siberia—I have always lost in the past to our warm climate.

Raspberries. A single purple raspberry plant I bought for the old garden never really found its home there, but it did yield several starts that have come with me to the new property. I plan to put in a dedicated raised bed for these in one of our sunnier spots this winter.

Maypops. We brought some of these along from our last house as well, and although I don’t expect them to fruit as well in the shade, our new property offers a better setting for them in the landscape. In our old garden, maypops were sprouting directly out of the lawn, which made it difficult to balance getting a crop and keeping our lawn from becoming a jungle. Planting these (rather weedy) vines into our already-weedy ravine area will eliminate the problem.

Persimmons. Although full sun certainly benefits these native fruit, I see them fruiting heavily all the time on the edge of the woods here, sometimes while overhung by large shade trees. Here’s hoping we can recreate that pattern in our garden.

Mushrooms. We cultivated both shiitake and stropharia mushrooms in our old garden, and neither ever did very well. With a shadier spot and much-improved access to hardwood logs, mushrooms represent one crop that should perform better for us than in the past.

I’m kicking around a few other ideas as well—ostrich ferns, ramps, hazelnuts, asparagus—but this plant list represents the starting point. It’s hard not to feel a little daunted and even discouraged by the way that the shade may constrain my options and reduce the fruitfulness of our garden. But I have to remind myself that gardening always involves working with constraints. We find the real joy and challenge of gardening precisely by working within those limits. Keeping that in mind, I’m excited to begin my work on this garden.