One effect/by-product of growing vegetables in less than full sun is that the plants do not stay as compact as those grown with more hours of sunlight. This also means that there is more need for support. In my case, I didn’t want to go the route of getting some long wooden stakes and tying up the tomatoes or cucumber vines the way I might if I were growing in my (theoretical) backyard. However, when you are growing them in front of a condo, wooden stakes can look kind of junky.
Fortunately, my local big-box store had tomato cages that were coated in dark green plastic. When they were set up in my front bed, the dark color pretty much faded into the background and they were hardly noticeable at a distance.
It seems like almost everything we planted took up more space than we expected. The tomatoes climbed out the top of the cages and wandered across the shrubbery behind them. These tomato plants proved so heavy that the cages began to lean over. On the plus side, all those green tomatoes are starting to turn red (finally!).
The cucumbers have ambled along the edge of the beds and threatened to choke a newly-planted rose bush. I keep turning the vines away, but they somehow find their way back. I probably should have used a trellis on them as well.
