I'm new to
permaculture gardening in general and our shade garden (front
lawn) in particular so take this with a grain of salt, but my research turned up many fruiting plants (raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, elderberries) and greens (chard, kale, lettuce) that will tolerate shade. Not thrive, but just survive and if there is at least partial sun/dappled shade, produce edibles (though at a less impressive yield than if they were in a sunnier location).
Our strategy here is to only risk planting stuff in the shade garden that we've read reports of "shade tolerance" and that we won't mind a smaller yield (a lot of berries fall into this category as the plants yield quite a lot in full sun and our own eating habits can only find so many uses for fresh berries, so a low yield just reduces opportunities to can, freeze, or make wine). Will be interesting to see how it works out.
Our shade is from a massive boulevard tree and nearby houses/ornamental
trees, but all spaced so there is some "edge" sun from the east and west, and a bit of dappled sun from above. Some areas right by the house are total shade though and we're not expecting a lot of edibles from these areas (though still trying the berries/greens strategy, plus a North Line serviceberry tree, a scotch pine (nuts/pollen) on the NW corner, some junipers (berries can be used to season meat), an ornamental birch and some
mushroom projects eventually).
The succession vision is for a shady forest garden, probably with some of the lower level edibles shaded out or producing very little further down the line (a decision based mostly on things we can't change like the massive ancient boulevard tree, neighbor houses, and the north-facing slope). We figure it's worth planting edibles even if they only manage a bit of productivity (but may be wrong and have to replace with more ornamental perennials that at least improve the biodiversity and create biomass, etc.). Mainly we want all the grass, hostas, and arborvitae out of there (inherited generic St. Paul landscaping when we bought the house this spring, stella d'oro daylilies and hybrid roses were the only blooming things that looked intentionally planted). Funny part is we found a few patches of
volunteer raspberries in front of the daylilies and shrubs in the shadiest spot on the east side of the house (only 4' from the house, covered in shade from the neighbor's house 4' the other direction). So we know stuff will fruit there, even though it looks like it's deeply shaded during all hours of the day. Fruit-in-hand is all the proof of concept we need to put something in there, shade or sun.
