Sunlight
Sunlight is the boss:
Water, soil, compost are all middle management. If the light's wrong, nothing else matters. Leggy, pale, leaning plants aren't hungry — they're light-starved. Don't feed a plant with a light problem. Move the plant.
Here's the cheat sheet:
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Full sun (6+ hours) — tomatoes, peppers, squash, beans, cucumbers. Think of their leaves as solar panels. Feed them light or get nothing.
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Part sun (3–6 hours) — lettuce, spinach, kale, most leafy greens. Happy to skip the afternoon roast.
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Under 3 hours — root vegetables sulk, fruiting veg won't fruit. You'll get leaves, maybe. Time to rethink the spot, not the watering frequency or fertilizer.
Quick gut-check: Watch your yard for a day. Where the sun actually lands is your zone, not where you want to plant your garden. A spot shaded by a fence from 2–6pm is not "sunny." It's shady with a view of sun.
Timing, Angle, and Placement:
Not all sun is created equal, and where you put things matters as much as how much light they get.
The daily arc:
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Morning sun (~6–10am) — gentle, low-angle, warming gradually. Easy on tender leaves. Good spot for lettuce, spinach, arugula. Let them wake up slow and gentle, like you want to be woken up. Perfect time for a shower.
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Midday sun (~10am–2pm) — highest angle, most concentrated. This is what "full sun" actually means. Tomatoes, peppers, squash want this.
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Afternoon sun (~2–5pm) — sun's tilting down, but the ground and air have been soaking up heat all day, so this is often the hottest stretch regardless of angle. Hard on shallow-rooted, thin-leaved vegetables which will often wilt.
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Evening sun (west-facing, low down and nasty) — This is the sneaky one. Sun feels weaker because it's low, but it hits sideways across leaves and stems, and lands on plants that are already hot from the day. West-facing beds can scald lettuce and sun-scorch the exposed side of tomatoes even though the light "looks gentler." Don't be fooled by the strength.
Practical takeaway: east exposure = gentler, forgiving. West exposure = hits later and harder, when the plant's already cooked.
Placement strategy:
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Use your tall plants as shade cloth. Plant lettuce, spinach, and other heat-shy greens on the east or north side of tall crops (corn, staked tomatoes, trellised beans, sunflowers). They get morning light, then the tall stuff blocks the brutal afternoon/evening sun.
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Avoid putting greens on the west side of anything. That's double exposure (afternoon heat + evening raking light). This will cause them to go straight to seed and give you no leaves.
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Root vegetables (carrots, beets) are more tolerant of a west spot since they're not sunburning leaf tissue the same way. But, they'll still want consistent moisture if they're catching that late heat.
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Fruiting vegetables go wherever gets the longest unbroken stretch of midday-to-afternoon sun — they can take the heat, and it's what they need to actually flower and fruit.
Provide shade with structure, not guesswork.
Let your tall plants do the shade cloth's job for the plants that can't handle a full day of it.