• Medium- to small-fruited tomatoes are the best varieties to plant in a shadier garden.coloured tasty tomatoes image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
  
  Tomatoes love sun. They thrive best in places where they get at least five hours of sun a day, preferably more. However, if you really want to grow tomatoes and your gardening space is mostly shade, there are some medium- and small-fruited tomato varieties that you could plant in areas with less than five hours of sun, according to Cynthia Sandberg of Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, California. Another alternative is container planting. Tomatoes will grow in a container if placed in a sunny location.
  
  If you do grow tomatoes in a partially shaded location, monitor the plants frequently for signs of disease and provide additional fertilizer. According to the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, tomatoes in full sun grow much more vigorously and disease is more easily controlled than in partial shade. Additionally, tomatoes grown in the shade have a lower acid content and may not be safe to can using traditional stove-top methods, says the Colorado State University Extension Service.
  
  

Medium Varieties

• There are several types of medium-sized tomato varieties you can choose from for your shadier garden. If you've never tried any varieties, try a couple different ones to see which grow the best in your area and which are the tastiest to you. On the Love Apple Farm website, Sandberg recommended shade-tolerant varieties including 'Black Prince,' 'Stupice,' 'Bloody Butcher,' 'Green Zebra,' 'Northern Lights,' 'Purple Calabash,' 'Mandarin Cross,' 'Siletz,' and 'Costoluto Genovese.' Don't be surprised if your tomato garden isn't red when growing these colorful varieties. 'Black Prince' is blackish in color and offers juicy, rich tomato flavor. 'Green Zebra' resembles a small watermelon and is great for making green salsa. 'Northern Lights' is a bi-color, sweet tomato. These cultivars may not be available in your local stores. They may need to be mail-ordered.
  
  

Small Varieties

• Some small tomatoes that grow in less than five hours of sunlight include the 'Yellow Pear,' 'White Cherry,' 'Rosalita,' 'Sungold,' 'Matinas,' and 'Jaune Flammee.' 'Sungolds' are golden orange and very sweet. 'Matinas,' which came from Germany, have a flavor that resembles the large beefsteak tomato. The French 'Jaune Flammee' is an apricot color and is very fruity in flavor. These smaller tomatoes not only vary in color--'White Cherry' is actually white--they also vary in shape from circular to pear.
  
  

Container Planting

• An alternative to planting the smaller shade varieties is container gardening. If you have a sunny patio, porch, door step, or balcony, you can plant most any tomato variety in a container and it will grow in its sunny location. They will even grow in a window sill planter if sunny enough. Only one plant should be planted in each container. Container suggestions are gallon cans, bushel baskets, wooden boxes, large planters, and drums.