We’re always “chasing the sun” here on The Little Half Acre. Our tiny homestead sits between two parcels of land that have mature maple, oak and buckeye trees right on or near the property lines. The sunniest spot we have is a ten foot wide strip of grass just out the back door that runs across the width of the property. That area averages seven and a half hours of sun a day. Everything else gets four to six hours, usually in the hottest part of the day. That makes gardening quite a challenge! How do you properly rotate nightshade crops like tomatoes and peppers that demand a full day of sun while employing companion planting methods and properly rotating crops?
Guess we won’t be rotating our nightshade plants quite up to standards, which is every three years. We’ll probably end up growing our nightshades on the same spot every other year and just plan on limited harvests when they’re rotated to a less sunny spot. We’ll have to see how that goes. Our neighbor to the east is planning on having his property logged and we can’t wait! Although, that was a year ago and the oaks still stand tall to the east. If the oaks were cut, our entire homestead would receive two more hours of sun each day. Sigh.
Meanwhile, there are two new raised beds in that itty-bitty sunny area and it’s given me a bit more space for those sun hungry crops. There’s a new 12 foot bed with an 8 foot bed running perpendicular to it and we’ve put grow bags in front of the larger bed to hold even more indeterminate tomatoes. So far (knock on wood) the tomatoes in the grow bags look great and the eggplants, tomatoes and peppers in the two new beds are growing steadily. Here’s how that process looked:
And finally, everything’s growing well and looking good! Fingers crossed!
