That's true and I keep forgetting that. It just never crosses my mind about the sunlight being so different from here and how it changes everything. To someone like me who has never experienced it, it is so alien that it seems unbelievable. But then I suppose if you were to suddenly appear in my backyard this afternoon with no forewarning you would probably feel the same
No. I've learned from you.
I suppose we all take it for granted that we work our gardens/plots the same year after year and don't consider the difficulties of other areas. It would be interesting to visit each others countries for a year and see how we would cope growing in a different environment. I don't suppose for one moment that first year would be successful.
When Bees and I first started sharing gardening techniques here and in the UK, it was, to me, completely foreign. Especially tomatoes, the severe pruning of them and only allowing 1 or 2 of the main shoots to set fruit. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that concept as it is the complete opposite here. I had always believed that sunlight was just that, sunlight, but it isn't. Here in the US everyone understands that morning sun is the best. Why this is true I don't know, but it's true. Summertime afternoon sun is a killer and not just because of the heat. Fruit will scald almost as fast when the temps are in the high 80's as they will into the 100's. It has to do with the intensity and directness of the sunlight that we must allow for, thus the more foliage we can grow on the plant the better. And this leads to the requirement of large root systems, the larger the better. Here where I live and in a lot of the southern US we have a 365 day growing season. BUT, and this is a big but, only a short growing season for plants such as tomatoes. I have basically 3 growing seasons. Fall, winter and spring. In the summer such as now, it is just about impossible to maintain much of a garden. Being that each season is so short we must strive to grow plants as rapidly as possible. For instance with tomatoes we do everything possible to do this by fertilizing the growing area before the plant is even seeded or potted up. The plant must mature enough and big enough to set fruit as soon as the nighttime temps are favorable. I usually gamble a bit and plant a bunch of plants about the 2 week of March as our last frosts average about the first of April. Sometimes I get lucky. Our tomatoes here MUST set and ripen fruit before July 15. Otherwise all kinds of bad things will start to happen. My climate allows for tremendous production but only for a very short time span. And during this time span one must be very vigilant and on guard for enumerable pests and diseases.It's interesting to read how vegetable and fruit (in the case of tomatoes) production can differ between countries and I hadn't thought about the requirements for growing in different climates until it was mentioned here.
@Chuck my buckets are only 2 1/2 gallons so roots are more restricted than you thought. I grow in a multi purpose compost that I buy as I can't produce enough of my own and nutrients dwindle very quickly, however I don't start feeding until the first tomato has set. I have been discussing on another forum the effect of stress on plants concerning produce yields and it could be that the more a plant is stressed the higher the yield. I've noticed this with my house plants, if I forget to water them they will produce flowers. It's an interesting theory.
Headfullofbees has mentioned light limiting growth and production, temperature obviously comes into that too. Around the solstice in June we have approximately 20 hours of daylight but that is no good without heat. The average summer temperature here on my island is quite low compared with other parts of Britain and this year we've only had a couple of weeks over 68F/20C which has been a day here and there, not continuous. Temperature today because it's raining again is 61F/16C.
Whatever country/area we live in we all have issues with our environment regarding growing crops of all kinds. We have few pests and diseases here to worry about in Britain but we lose out because of the climate. It's possibly the reverse for you Chuck?
2.5 UK gallons = 11.36 litres ~ 3 US gallons.It's interesting to read how vegetable and fruit (in the case of tomatoes) production can differ between countries and I hadn't thought about the requirements for growing in different climates until it was mentioned here.
@Chuck my buckets are only 2 1/2 gallons so roots are more restricted than you thought. I grow in a multi purpose compost that I buy as I can't produce enough of my own and nutrients dwindle very quickly, however I don't start feeding until the first tomato has set. I have been discussing on another forum the effect of stress on plants concerning produce yields and it could be that the more a plant is stressed the higher the yield. I've noticed this with my house plants, if I forget to water them they will produce flowers. It's an interesting theory.
If you repeatedly stress plants, especially
Headfullofbees has mentioned light limiting growth and production, temperature obviously comes into that too. Around the solstice in June we have approximately 20 hours of daylight but that is no good without heat. The average summer temperature here on my island is quite low compared with other parts of Britain and this year we've only had a couple of weeks over 68F/20C which has been a day here and there, not continuous. Temperature today because it's raining again is 61F/16C.
Whatever country/area we live in we all have issues with our environment regarding growing crops of all kinds. We have few pests and diseases here to worry about in Britain but we lose out because of the climate. It's possibly the reverse for you Chuck?
Morning sun is best in N America because it gives plenty of sunlight prior to the extreme heat of the day, when you have to add the radiant heat from the sun to the air temperature. That radiant heat can add 18-20F (~10C) or more to the heat that the plant feels.