Let there be light

As a gardener, there are many things that can be done to ensure that whatever we plant grows well. We can recondition the soil with compost, manure and other enhancements; we can plant items best suited to the environment; and we can tend to our gardens faithfully. But the one thing we can’t do is to get more light than our location delivers us. And for me that is my biggest challenge as my house is on a heavily wooded north-facing ridge.

What that means is that most of my property resides in shade throughout the growing season. In the summer the sun sets behind the trees around 5 pm even though it doesn’t get dark until 9 pm. The only saving grace I have for my vegetable plot is that it resides on raised beds on a greenhouse foundation that was built over 100 years ago when my house was a barn and the surrounding area a hunting estate; it gets the most sun on my property. When it was built, the hills were barren of trees and used for grazing.  But now, with 100 years of growth, maples, ashes, oaks, birches, and cherry trees have replaced the grasses of the past to cast deep, dark shade. For the rest of my gardens, my wife and I have resigned ourselves to planting shade-lovers like hostas, astilbes, bleeding hearts and the like; we have experimented with more sun-loving plants in the few spotty areas that get more sun than shade.

So in the summer time, the sun is high in the sky delivering lots of energy and light to my garden so the tomatoes can swell in the light of the day and the potatoes in the dark of the soil. But a funny thing happens around Labor Day: my vegetable garden goes dark. A small greenhouse I put up last year no longer needs to be covered with shade netting. I can’t sit among my plants and bathe in the sun. The beds don’t need to be watered nearly as frequently.

In prior years, this was not an issue (or even an observation) but last year I decided to start a 3/4 season vegetable garden. I planted all my seeds when I was supposed to but between the carnage of slugs and the lack of light, it was a bust. This year things have improved a bit so that I am getting reasonable yields, but my plants still lack the size of those in other plots such as those of Daphne’s Dandelions as well as the Children’s Garden where I work with children. I am hoping my observations of this year and some experiments I will try next year will improve my harvest yet again.

Now I have light as nearly all the leaves have dropped off the deciduous trees that cover my hill. This light is a wonderful strong light that pours not only into my garden but into our dining room where my wife and I often have lunch from now into late April when the leaves of spring come between us and the sun. I’m hoping the greens will react well to this new stimulus and grow enough to feed us for the remainder of the year. If not, I have a fall back: many of the varieties I have planted winter-over so I’ll just get a good start on next spring.

Comments

[Erik]

Daphne, I think you are right about starting a month early. I will also have to figure out somewhere to stage my plants and letting them get large before putting them into the garden as my slugs are a bit out of control regardless of the measures taken e.g. beer, iron phosphate, etc. I put out spinach two weeks ago and the slugs just wiped me out.

[Daphne]

I have the same issue as you, though my slope is pretty meager. I have a lot of huge oak trees to the south of the garden. I've found that I have to add a month to the dates that people tell you. My brassicas (like broccoli and Chinese cabbage) went into the garden in July. Those beds don't ever have summer crops in them. They go from spring crops to fall crops. I make sure a lot of their growth happens when the garden is still sunny. At least in the spring the trees have all lost their leaves so there is more sun.