Here are some photos of my plants as of recently. I hope they look okay. I just transplanted some to bigger containers. I hope I didn't do it too early!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Current Plants

All I can tell you that you cannot grow any of those mentioned with 2 hrs of sun. Not even with 4 hrs. They need minimum of 6 hours of direct sun. With tomatoes, you might be able to do somthing wit 4 hrs direct and some indirect, but the rest are called "full sun" plants.
Then you have not mentioned where you are. It make some differnce if you are in zone 5 or zone 9, for example.

The more composted-type materials you can get into your soil, the better. Also, I agree that a couple hours of sun might not be enough for those sun loving plants. You might be able to grow some greens in some of the shadier areas, but those fruiting veggies need some sun to do well. You might want to put a couple of them in containers where they can get full sun.

You can do any of those in pots, but the tomatoes are going to need at least a 5 gal bucket (preferably more). When I lived in AZ, my peppers did well in 5 gal. buckets (they dried out fast though). I have never tried a topsy turvy. Maybe you can do an experiment...one in the ground in your sunniest spot, one in a tub or bucket and one in the topsy turvy. See which one works best for you.

Here is a link that might be useful: my zone 5 gardening blog

For the portions with less light, you may want to consider raising up the beds or using containers if that will get you more sunlight.

It would help if you knew exactly how much sun you are going to have. If it increases significantly, you may simply be starting your plants too soon. With a long growing season, they will have plenty of time to mature and you can save the greens for the darker days of winter.

You should have an idea of the shade/light situation in the coming months. If it is just long shadows, you will be in the sun enough to produce tomatoes. I have some of my beds which are in the sun only May through July, and I can grow greens there.

If it does not get above 6 hrs, though, you should really go with greens only. And you should make it an habit of saving every kitchen scrap, and mixing it with leaves. A few old trash cans will be enough to make compost out of sight and out of smell if you mix with leaves. I cringe when I see people buy compost, and I have 2200 square feet of garden.

Thanks for all the replies! Eek... I can't remember how much sun we get later in the year. We certainly aren't in the dark and as I mentioned above we are in Zone 9 which I think may help?

I guess I will be getting more large containers tomorrow. I bought two massive ones today and a pre-grown determinate tomato plant. I have it on wheels so I can move it to where the sun is. I think by summer we should get plenty. It is odd that I can't even remember but we've hardly done anything with the patio since we've lived here.

I wanted to add that two years ago I planted tomatoes in a container in the dirt patch where I plan to plant this year. The tomato plants produced a few tomatoes but they were tiny and then rotted. I stupidly (as I said, novice here) planted 3-4 plants in one small container that wasn't even 12 inches deep.

With this information, would you suspect that the fact that the plants only produced a few small fruit was due to the tiny container and not the lack of sun?

I'm already moving to the idea of planting more in containers, but I'd love to attempt some in ground and see what happens.

Again, any advice is greatly appreciated. I know you are all full of knowledge on this concept of which I have none!

Hi GangrenousBlackThumb ,
It is as you now suspect, your plants need larger containers and or planted into the ground, they want to grow, they want to thrive, it is up to you to provide them what they need to do so... here is one example , this is a single SunGold Tomato plant, I topped it off every couple of weeks because I couldn't reach the top when it got over 10' tall, it was nearly 6' wide, if you will provide it with adequate soil,sun and nutrients, it will provide for you.

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I think your plants were big enough to transplant--mine seem to do better when I move them before they out grow their current container. My only tip/suggestion would be to avoid peat pots in the future. As a fellow newbie, I planted some of my seedlings in old plastic pots leftover from store bought plants from previous years gardens. I planted the rest in peat pots--because they are supposed to be environmentally friendly and were cheap. My poor little plants in the peat pots are runts! The plastic pot plants look great--even better than the garden center. I guess the peat sucks all the water away from the plants roots. Hopefully you'll have better luck with them than I did!

For most of those plants, you'll want to do planters on the patio
Fruiting veggies need a good bit of sun to do much and planters are a nice way to do herbs

The SF area is not that far south, so being Zone 9 doesn't increase the intensity of the sunshine, just give you a nice long growing season

Are there trees on your property that you could "limb up" to get more sun onto your garden patch?