Shade Loving Fruit for Front of House

My house faces the north, and while my backyard gets so much sun that I wonder how my plants can stand it at times, my front needs some love.

I used to have some of the ugliest bushes up near the house, with stinky white flowers that would flower for a day, then turn brown and hang there so that the bushes looked diseased. I took them out because a bare front was actually preferable to the mess that they were. This means I have a nice long planting area in front of the house to play with. The problem is that the area is on the north side of the building and so gets about five minutes of direct sun per day.

I have some day lilies and some weird stuff that looks kind of like a cross between a red paintbrush and pampas grass to brighten it up with, but what I really want is a bush that will grow something edible. I'm thinking blueberries, but I'm not sure if they would like more than a partial shade. The flowers will do alright there, but I have a goal of having food growing everywhere.

So, short of blueberries (which is not a bad thing, actually), does anyone have a suggestion for some sort of bush that will produce some sort of fruit, that will like the shade? If not, I'll probably put blueberries in there, but it might be nice to have something else.

how about some hydrangeas. they have some wonderful new colors and different sizes. would be great in an area with not much sunlight. and i'd put some lily-of-the-valley under them. you could try herbs. even though them say full sun, i've always had better luck with part shade. basil will grow anywhere i think!

I am doing these in a bed in the shade of the north side of the house.

Salal
Evergreen Huckleberry
Chilean Guava
Alpine Strawberry
Spinach
Miners Lettuce
Thimbleberry
Salmonberry
Serviceberry

Fruit and shade don't normally go together. I would lend more toward an ever blooming hydrangea. If you want some winter color camilla's would work as well.

What about Amelanchier, serviceberry? I've never eaten the fruit from mine since the birds get it first but I understand it's good.

I was also thinking of PawPaw until I read the blossoms have a strong odor.

All the ones I listed above are specifically listed to fruit well in shade. I have quite a few Serviceberry varieties and they are almost all planted in partial shade instead of full sun. I havent planted one in full shade before. I would get one of the lower growing varieties that sucker. I think Running Serviceberry would be good.

Paw Paw dislike our area. If you have well drained, sandy acid soil, you might be fine.

Paw Paw in the deep south need to be under tall trees with no real direct sun or at least that is my experience. I do have sandy acidic soil BTW.

I think Hastur has clay alkaline soil. It is possible he might have some sand.
Young Paw Paw are required to be in deep shade for the first 2-3 years of life or they will die. After that, Paw Paw will develop a tolerance to sun and even live in very hot direct sun when much older.

If your sun and heat are like mine, which they're probably close, you might try some of these: I have and they all worked:

nasturtiums, edible
goji fruit
cucumbers
peppers, tremendous results!
lettuce
lavender
leeks
chives
lemongrass
early silver line melon
mints
komatsuna, even in the winter
garlic
marigolds
pak choy
pansy
parsley
holly
roses
spinach
violets

Do you know, I NEVER would have thought of cukes in there... Interesting.

After reading up on various ideas from all of you, I'm going to mix it up a bit this year just to get a better feeling for what will like it, or not. I'm still kind of wanting a fruit bush eventually (and those service berries look very tasty), but for now I've put in chard, spinach, nastursums and marigolds. I figure that the flowers will brighten it all up while hiding the fact that my front section is edible. Once the peppers germinate, though, I'm putting a few out there to see what happens.

The Spinach is huge in my shade garden right now. It is at least 3x as big as the Spinach in full sun.


I completely forgot to mention Naranjilla. That would do great in a shade garden. It hates direct sun in the south.

That naranjilla looks completely fascinating. I wonder if I can get a few around here. That would be perfect for the side of the house. And, I bet I could keep it trimmed down a hair so that it stays more or less within the limits of what I want it to stay within.

Thank you all!