• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

sun Morning sun or evening sun?

Or does it matter? I am building an 8' x 2' raised bed for some of my peppers and I have two really decent spots for the bed. One gets morning sun and evening shade and the other is the opposite. Both get equal amounts of daytime sun. So does it really matter? Maybe I'll build two beds and try each and see if there is a difference.
 
Where my pepper are going to get planted they will get morning sun until 12pm then evening 4pm to sunset. I was lucky to find a spot like that :)
 
Afternoon sun is more intense than morning sun. I would go with afternoon sun if you only get a few hours of sun to maximize, but morning sun if you get over 8 hours to give the plants the break in the heat of summer. I grew a naga morich plant and a datil plant on my front porch last year and they only got about 5 hours of afternoon sun. I got well over 200 peppers from each plant and they outperformed the plants on the back porch that got 7 hours of morning sun. The ones in the back were a naga and a bhut. I know the bhut has lower production, but the plants just looked healthier in the front even with less sun.

jacob
 
Cool...that's where I went ahead and did the bed. The plants will get morning sun and continued sun until about 5pm and then be in shade the rest of the evening so it should work out really nice. I think I am going to reserve this spot for my scorpions if I can get seedlings started asap.
 
Yeah...I am probably doing another bed that will be in the other spot that gets morning shade and evening sun. I had some japs, Thai, and Serrano peppers there last year that did pretty well despite a really late start. I will probably do more japs in that spot and the habs in my regular garden.
 
Interesting question...

When I first harden-off my plants, morning sun is a killer. Afternoon sun, sunburn minor to none. I suspect that the low angle in the morning is the culprit.

For mature, hardened-off plants I'd give 'em sun until about 1pm, then shade or filtered sunlight. Hippy grows his biggest and largest plants next to a fence and shaded. Personally, I think that filtered full sun is the best.

Good luck on your growing.
 
I have about 70 plants that I put outside in the shade about 2 weeks ago. They've been doing great so I decided to put them in direct sunlight about 3 days ago. They all seemed to tolerate things well when the temps were in the 70s. Today the heat got up to about 90 so I checked on them during mid-day. Oh crap!! A number of leaves on many of my chinenses plants including the bhuts and 7-POTs were basically sun scorched. I immediately put them in the shade and gave them some water. It's dusk now and the leaves that were the hardest hit had to be pruned. I did save a number of the less affected leaves though. I think that they will survive, but I'm totally bummed that so many leaves are a little crispy on the edges. In stark contrast, my annums seem to love the heat. Over 20 species....each one doing great in the heat. Do the large leaves of the superhots make them more susceptible to sun damage?

I guess that I will try and move the superhots to an area that only gets morning sunlight. Live and learn I guess, but I hope everything survives that bit of stress. I only had to remove at most 2 leaves per plant that was affected. I worked so hard to get to this point!
 
arringdd, your plants will be completely fine. Depending on how old they are, they're relatively hard to kill once they've reached a decent age. I put out 6 plants over a month ago here without hardening off, without anything and they're still alive. They dont look great, but their new growth is so green and lush. The wind and sun and colder temps stunted them, but they'll make it. Sorry trying not to hijack, but pics of how bay they are now:
DSC00979.jpg

DSC00980.jpg

DSC00982.jpg

In another month, they'll look completely new!
 
Straticus, That's good to know that I'm not the only one. My bhuts look just like the pics you've posted! I was freaking out. So now that begs the question......should I just put them right back out in the direct light or should I give them a day or two to recover a bit?

Also, another question for you. It looks like we are going to have a stretch of rain for the next 4 days here. Is it ok to just let them get rained on as long as the soil drains? Or do you guys cover them or move them? Unfortunately I don't have any place to put that many plants! What do you do personally?
 
I would give them a few days rest atleast. I never gave mine a break just to see how well they'd do, and they're extremely stunted compared to my other plants. The rain should be fine on your plants as long as they have been hardened off the least bit to resist strong wind. I usually bring mine inside if theres a good chance of a severe storm, like I did tonight because we have a chance of a severe thunderstorm. Even though they're been out for a month, a really strong storm with or without hail could do a lot of damage.
 
Thanks so much for your pics and reply.
That is exactly how my plants look.
I still dont understand what you mean by hardening?
Do I need to shade my plants, or what. What caused your plants to look like that?
 
Hey Straticus, I noticed it looks like you pot your plants way off center to one side???? if so, just curious, whats the reason for it??
 
Haha, or maybe one arm :tear: No, no "scientific" reason behind it. They werent the final pots for the plants, so no need to be all perfect in center. They were just recently put into 5 gallons. I dont think being in the center of the pot really makes a big difference though.
 
Back
Top