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I called bull on the whole "you need full sun for tomatoes" thing and my 3rd floor spot proved me dead wrong
Honestly I spent my first two seasons on my north facing balcony in Chicago trying to grow tomatoes and cherry peppers and they were these sad little sticks that gave me like four tiny fruits total. Everyone in the local garden group kept parroting the same thing, you need 6 to 8 hours of direct sun or don't bother, and I believed it. Then last spring I got lazy and just left a couple of cherry tomato starts in the corner that only gets maybe 3 hours of morning sun, mostly because I felt bad throwing them out. Those two plants ended up giving me more tomatoes than the ones I babied on the sunniest part of the railing. I think the deal is the heat on a west facing balcony was actually cooking the blossoms on my "good" plants and the shadier corner stayed cooler so they could actually set fruit. The only thing I did different was water them a little less and stop moving them around every week. So now I'm that person telling newbies to try a shadier spot if their balcony bakes in the afternoon. Has anyone else had better luck with a spot that everyone swears is too dark?
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