How much sunlight do tomatoes need?
JJK2_4
12 years ago
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digdirt2
12 years agomissingtheobvious
12 years agoRelated Discussions
how much does amount of sunlight affect growth rate?
Comments (4)It's not so much speed of growth that gardeners care about as vigor in reproductive growth and pest resistance. Other factors being equal, both of those variables get markedly better with increase in direct sun at the critical hours around midday (9-3, 8-4). "Twelve hours of light" would seem by definition to mean zero shade in those critical hours. "Six hours of light" could be a lot more ambiguous. When direct sunlight falls below a certain threshold, vegetable plants tend to bolt; that is they shoot for the fastest possible reproduction, whether in the case of a pea plant growing very tall and spindly with just a miserable pod or two or a turnip in severe cases can collapse two seasons into one and produce a seed-stalk and hardly any root. In fact, light deprivation will in pure vertical terms often create faster growth, but it isn't good growth....See MoreSunlight for tomatoes
Comments (7)I regard as "sunlight" only when the sun is shining directly on the plant, or with high-efficiency reflection, such as from a mirror or one of those mirror-fabrics (sort of like shiny tinfoil) they make for garden purposes like increasing light. I realize that planting against a white wall will create a microclimate of greater light on the plant than if it were planted against a black wall or just standing alone in a field. I've been using that principle to my advantage with sage and sunflowers. There's light shade, partial shade and deep shade. To me, light shade is heavily dappled with sunlight, like sunlight through a tree that doesn't have a dense canopy. Partial shade means that the plant gets less than 6 hours of sunlight shining directly on it. Deep shade means the plant isn't even getting dappled sunlight, because the tree canopy is too dense, or the sun is blocked by a solid barrier (like a building). A plant can have both light and partial shade, or both deep and partial shade - like if it has 4 hours of direct sunlight shining on it and the rest of the day it has most of the sun screened by a tree. One of the things I did for my garden area one sunny weekend was make a drawing of the garden plot, copy it 12 times, then sketch in the shade lines every hour. That way I could tell exactly how much sunlight a particular area got on a sunny day, at a certain time of year. I repeated it a couple other times in the season and now I keep those sheets in my garden notebook. It led me to abandon a bed that hadn't been doing well because I figured out why - it was fully shaded at the base, so the vining crops I kept trying to grow there weren't making it up to the sun. Interestingly the morning glory weeds were doing great there, so now I grow morning glories there. Maybe next year I'll plant asparagus there, because it can tolerate shade, especially at first, until it gets tall and ferny (which would be when it was in the sun)....See MoreHow Much Sunlight is needed to start a garden
Comments (4)HA! EG, I sure have bemoaned my lack of sunlight enough, haven't I? :) Here is a link that might be useful: The Corner Yard...See MoreHow much direct sunlight
Comments (9)vickikim, I would not transplant! Transplanting puts a lot of strain on the plant, and at this stage in the growing season, your plant will waste energy on acclimating to its new spot, rather than producing fruit. I would leave them where they are, and use a liquid fertilizer that is high in phosphorus. Phosphorus (or phosphate, when bonded with oxygen) emphasizes on the roots, and the stronger and denser your roots are beneath the soil, the more and bigger tomatoes the plant can support on top. I would focus on that, now until harvest! Harlow...See Moreqaguy
12 years agoladon
12 years agoJJK2_4
12 years agoDMollaun
11 years agowertach zone 7-B SC
11 years agojolj
11 years ago
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