Gardening on the North side of a house on a North facing slope

I've been doing some more musing about gardening "on the the North side of things".

The seven feet of yard nearest the house never see direct noontime sun because it is always in the shadow of the house. The next seven feet only get direct sun in the height of summer (June - mid July). Then we get into the region that gets sun from the spring through fall equinox.

So I guess this means I will have a strip of shade garden (maybe with some trellised shade tolerant vines). Then I'll do raised bed gardening between two swales.

This is the side of the garage facing East. It seems to be screaming for espaliered fruit trees.

I am also becoming more interested in figuring out how to make best use of the roof of the garage. It probably gets pretty good light for growing up there and it isn't really set up well for solar power because of the tall trees just to the South of it. But maybe windows that capture some passive solar heat to drive the green house behind the garage.

Here is a look at the 25' x 22' space behind the garage.

That's about a three foot drop behind the little wall.

I had always thought of the chickens / ducks/ quail going against the back fence, but they may do better right behind the garage, then the greenhouse / pool house?

There are a couple trees that we need to work around or deal with. I need to determine how much space they need as well as how much space we need for the exercise pool. I am hoping I can "stack" the functions of the greenhouse vertically sharing the same space with the pool. It seems to me they should have compatible requirements and issues.

This is the tree I climbed to take these photos. Shasta showed me how it was done.

This cherry tree has a pretty funky form at the moment. It has a lot of character. I am looking forward to seeing what kind of micro climate it creates in the heat of the summer.

Shasta has been having even more fun than me exploring the new back yard.