How to Find the Best Spot for Plants (Sun Map Your Garden)
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- čas přidán 2. 04. 2021
- Understanding how sun and shade move across your garden is important for gardening success. Mapping that movement of the sun can help determine the best location for garden beds and what plants to grow. Gardener Scott discusses and demonstrates different methods that show how to sun map your garden. (Video #259)
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Great instructional on mapping sun movement and shade, thankyou! So important, more gardeners should do this especially in restricted backyards
Whilst observing gives valuable hands-on experience I prefer the mathematical approach for sunmapping; it saves me the 6months observation time and I can plan ahead.
Websites such as suncalc.org are invaluable; not only does it tell you how many sunhours you can expect at which date it also can tell you exactly at what angle the sun is shining at very specific times, including the length of cast shade (if you input the structure height).
Also by printing out a satalite google maps image its also easier to draw out structures on paper; google even tells you the scale.
Thank you for all your hard work creating and uploading, so we can have Free gardening Education! 🥳
Not to mention all the money he saves us in not making costly mistakes! I, too, appreciate the free education.
Scott, thanks for sharing your "wish I would've"s with us!
I love the sun mapping concept. I also plant less heat tolerant crops into my shaded beds on my 2nd planting (succession crops).
Cheers Scott 👍🙏💫
Ty! This has helped a lot for a couple of trouble spots in my garden.
We also overwintered the new strawberries in the most sunny wind-protected spots in the garden, regardless of whether it's the best spot in the summer, they needed to make it through the winter no matter what, and now they have a season to make enough runners to colonize the rest of the garden.
Thats absolutely right i was plant potatos and there was no space opposite sun light the plants leggy and the harvest small potatos and few then i find space in my home so i plant the potatos that sun light hit on its the growth is nuture
I didn’t sun map because we moved in only 8 months before but I knew the sun/ shade situation. where I really wanted the garden I couldn’t have it. One thing I had to do was map out where my drain field and septic were. Luckily my garden is safely away from the septic and gets nice morning and afternoon sun and early evening shade.
Very helpful information, thank you for sharing!
I tried to do this when I first moved in my new home. I just tried to describe where the sun was in writing. I always forget I can just take pictures! The flag idea sounds like a good one. Thank You!
Excellent video @Gardener Scott. I've never thought about putting it on paper, but after over 20 years in this house I've got the sun & shade mapped out in my head. I've got two main garden plots. One gets full sun from early morning until just after noon, the other gets full sun from ~10am until sunset. At this point I know exactly where I can plant sun-loving plants vs. shade vs. partial. I do also use strategically-placed trellises to create shade for growing cooler-weather crops in warmer temps.
Get out of my head Scott! Lol I got a great idea about trellisinf a few extra tomatos in the back of a cattle panel arch! That's up against the neighbors fence! This week im going to put a blanket over the top to mimic a full cattle panel of greens to see what kind of sun gets in the back if any... I have the seeds started...just trying to find a place to pop em in... vs giving them away or composting...
Great clear video. I appreciate your content!
I did something like this to determine the best spot for a shade tree to shade the front of my house. Unfortunately, the best place turned out to be right in the middle of my neighbor's house. I picked the next best place in my yard. :)
Bahaha too funny 🏡
This is something I should have done more thoroughly last September when I moved in, but I just couldn't wait for my first vegetable bed. So I now have a really good bed for greens that may provide the ability to grow greens all season long with a shade cover (it gets about 6 hours of full sun). Since my family has tomato and pepper food sensitivities, there's no worries there. I'm also thinking about adding cabbage. We'll see how things go this spring.
Awesome
It's so much easier at my lot, Scott...I do a shade map...there's shade and more shade...and the spot on the front lawn where I put in 3 beds with a good amount of sun ...and, you guessed it, some shade! 😂 But I still get some veggies and lots of flowers 😍👍
I've learned over the last 3 years that in my 9b/10a back yard that I actually NEED late-day shade August to mid-October. I was planting under the assumption that the most full sun the better. I've had some challenges with that. This year I am building some moveable temporary fence panels to block the late-afternoon sun much like your garage will be providing.
Another 9b-er here, and yes that afternoon shade can be the difference of life and death with our gardens. My tomatoes totally OD in my 9b afternoon heat/sun and just struggle to stay alive.
You’ve given me a crazy fun idea with this episode mr Scott! I’m going to use one of my drones to take photos of my back yard from maybe 80m or so,to do a photographic map,and maybe use that to do a time lapse type of record.🤯🤔 sounds good in my mind at least! I could even flag the spot in my back yard to get the drone in the (relatively) exact spot each time.
Maybe the drone can "bookmark" GPS locations? Upon selecting a GPS bookmark, the drone would move to that location.
That's a great idea. I may have to try that too.
@@richardb4787 yeah that’s a great idea!
Just a quick note, to get a general idea of how sun travels around your garden you can also use online maps such as suncalc.org. It lets you see how long the shadow of object of specific height will be at any time of the year/day. I am not sure how accurate this tool is though, as this year will be the first season i'm gonna use it to plan my garden.
Last year we planted radish seed everywhere, along with as much carrot seed, which took a year to germinate. The radishes showed us where there was enough sun, and we were surprised that certain spots did badly and adjacent spots did well, and that morning sun was far better than afternoon sun, even being the same hours, and on opposite sides of the same fence. It was a good experiment, and it took a couple months to see the distinct differences in plant growth.
What a great idea!
It's the same thing, the plants show us by their relative height and size, and radish makes tons of seeds so it's going to be available in quantity, even if it's a bag of deer radish from the tractor supply store.
Thank you Scott! What an excellent video. I feel much more confident about making a sun map for my garden.
I like the sun mapping concept. Thanks shared video! Have a nice day Scott
That was a tough one for us to figure out. It took us two seasons The tree line, out buildings, house, garage, even our electric pole wanted to cause us problems. The back yard would have been the best place, but the deer, rabbits, woodchucks, and etc. always caused us problems. The deer would get tangled in the garden fence and the others would just go under. Moved everything to the front yard built raised beds, problem solved. It has been years and the only critter that figured it out was a bear so far lol.
Happy Easter!
Great video! I did this in 2017 and thought I had the drawing papers tucked in my old garden journal but upon just looking I couldn’t find them. I might need to do it again this year.
Good, fun stuff. Thanks!
Hello hello👋🙏
This one was really good and at the time when I am in a process of choosing a place for my blueberries
Hi from The Ole Church 5 Acre Homestead 🇨🇦🇨🇦
I have a three foot barrier on my patio which considerably minimizes ‘full sun’. This year I’m taking advantage of my eaves instead and growing vertical for many of my vining veggies, so I can expand my ‘full sun’ space. I’m hopeful! So far when I’m growing in the partial sun (peas, beans and flowers) is absolutely loving it. So even us condo growers can sun map, we just have to also consider our full 3D space. 😉
Nice comment Melissa 👍
@@garynorcal4269 hey Gary, thanks man. Hope our heat wave is treating you kindly. :)
I am having both a great growing year and a disastrous year. I've lost plants to heat, cold, insects, too much water..etc. but, my garden with lots of replanting and succession crops is doing fairly well.
A new problem for me..I have a beautiful corn stalk over 6 feet which is gorgeous except there is no corn. Apparently, the female corn may not develop if the temperature was too low. This was in my 1st corn block.
Oh well..another way to fail.
@@garynorcal4269 what a lesson to learn!! 🥺 Well, they grow pretty darn fast, right?
@@melissasullivan1658 🙂🙃🙂😉😊
Have you used SunCalc.net? It’s also helpful. Great video, with helpful info. 👍🏻
Can you show how to use a Rapitest SunCalc sunlight calculator?
IMO if you garden and are house hunting you might want to look for a house whose front yard is on the north side so that your backyard (south side) will get the most sun possible. Also check if adjacent houses have trees that might shade the backyard.
I grew up in Utah.
Depending on your winter conditions .. that could also cause an ice and snow buildup on your driveway and sidewalk .. think about what is more important to you .
Trying to figure this out is making my head hurt lol. Must persevere tho, for the planties 🌱
Hi Gardner, Scott, thank you for your videos, they are very informative. I am in Grand Junction Colorado and just bought a new townhouse with a small yard. My backyard faces south, but there’s a 4 ft. fence to the south, 6 ft. fence to the east and a garage on the west. I’ve been taking photos of my backyard to see how the sun location will affect my gardening plants. My original plans was to put a flower beds the way along the fence. But at this current time there’s a shadow that extends 4 feet over where I plan to put the garden bed. So that leads me to having to build a raised beds in the center of the yard and along the back and east inside of the house. As of right now, the sun is rising south east of my yard creating that shadow along the fence but I’m thinking in June. The sun will be more above, so there should be less shadow along the fence, allowing me to plant my original plans of sun loving plants along the fence instead of shade plants. Do you think I am making the right decision.
Raised beds for vegetables in the center may be a good choice. Depending on where the sun is in June, you can still have flowers along the fence by choosing plants that don't need as much sun right next to it and sun lovers farther out.
Thank you for your quick reply. I love your videos. Very informative. I moved from California to Grand Junction 15 years ago and I’m still trying to get used to the weather out here. I purchased this home this past October, so I still haven’t planted a garden because I’m worried about the sun shady areas. I would love to keep in touch with you and send you photos of my updates. I also follow you on Facebook. Take care and God bless.
I have come across sun mapping apps online. Have been thinking about getting it one of these days. Wouldn't that be quicker? ( Frankly I don't need it . Having been in this house for 15 years, I know the sun / shade situation of every inch of my yard 😀
Keep in mind that trees grow too! My neighbors allowed a volunteer elm tree to grow near our fence and garden space. In the beginning, this was not a problem but now my garden is almost fully in shade because of this tree and I can do nothing to fix this except maybe move my garden😳
An easier way is to use Sun Seeker ($10) or Sun Position (free w/ ads) apps that use your phone's camera screen and augmented reality to trace the sun's path across the sky wherever you point the camera. Just add up the unshaded hours for any date you choose (or average two like June 21 and Aug 21) at any spot you stand in your yard, anywhere in the world. Then write the hours on a map of your yard. I just do the marginal spots, not the whole yard.
That can be an effective way to map. Thanks.
💞😍😘
dont it make a little cool down for some of the plant that get to hot
I’ve been hardening my tomatoes off for almost two weeks and they still want to wilt in direct sunlight. I keep having to move them back into the shade. I don’t know why these tomatoes this year are being preemadonna’s or just plain stubborn. They need to be in the ground by Monday or at least this week.
Check the soil moisture in the pots during the day. It may be drying out.