Most vegetables need at least 6 hours of direct sunlight, although even some of those tolerate a little shade too.

One thing to consider is if you have an area that gets a lot of sun, but there is no room to install a SFG bed, then you could do container gardening in those areas. Find a pot of some sort that you like and plant in it. That way you could also move the plants as the sun position changes during the year. I've had success with planting cherry tomatoes in pots on my back porch as well as herbs.

Have fun!

We did cherry tomatoes last year in containers, so if keeping those in sunlight is in question, I know I can do that again.

Everything else....I'm a little nervous about. Is there anything that gets particularly difficult to grow in containers?

I also had an arborist come out last night. He thinks that some much needed trimming of some trees will probably get me sunlight in my original site an hour or so earlier. I hope so, as I would be disappointed to not have a good area available!

In my opinion, growing vegetables in containers really is about providing the appropriate soil drainage and space for roots to spread out, given the sunlight space provided. So, the bigger the plant is supposed to get, the bigger the pot, in most cases. You could probably find a ton of information on container gardening online- maybe search for "apartment patio gardening" besides "container gardening". I've seen some pretty cool setups for a container garden. If anything else, see the Container Gardening section of this website.

Anyways, about the tree trimming- I have huge oak trees in my yard and in one area, the tree cannopy got so thick last year that my grass died out. When I finally figured out what caused it (very little sunlight), I had an arborist come out and clean up the trees. Now, one year later, without adding more grass, I have grass coming back in. So the extra sunlight does make a difference in my opinion. You should also notice a difference in the health of the trees if they do it right. But, keep in mind the cost/benefit too. Tree trimming by an arborist is usually not cheap. Is it worth spending that kind of money for an extra hour of sunlight on your first go-around with SFG? Other than money, it can depend on a few things like does your Salad Garden reqire more sunlight than you currently can provide? Are you trimming trees just for your garden or are you also trimming for the health of the trees at this point in time? You know what your situation is, so you make that call.

Keep posting,
Bryan

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The area I garden in only gets about that much sun. I am pleased with how much production I get, sure there would be more, but not enough to worry. All the leafy veggies don't mind some shade, so they do fine. Another thing I notice is that as the tomatoes, cucumbers, peas and other trellised plants grow, they get more sun as they climb. The biggest thing I've noticed is that on dewy mornings the plants don't dry out right away, which means I probably deal with more of the fungus and mold issues.