Here’s a recent question that came in last week:
“I have lots of shade but some sun in my front yard. Combination of
city trees, large bushes I don’t want to part with etc. I seem to
remember a device that one can put in a spot to determine the amount of
sun it gets per day. I want to try to incorporate veggies into the
landscape and this would help tell me where. Do you know where I might
find this and approx. price? Thanks in advance, Barbara”
Okay – great question Barbara. I happen to have a device that will monitor your sunlight in a given space and tell you what plants are recommended for growing in that space. I received it as a gift and have used it several times to help determine the best location for a garden. It’s called the Easy Bloom Plant Sensor. It has a downloadable software that interacts with the device when you plug it into a USB port on your computer. You can set it to monitor existing plants, or to make recommendations based on available sunlight.
For vegetables, you need to have at least 6 hours of sunlight in order for those plants to produce a harvest. It would be ideal to have between 8-10 hours, but not necessary. Some plants that grow well in partial shade are listed in this blog entry here:
Another sunlight tester (that I haven’t tried myself) is available from Planet Natural:
Grow Light Meter – $23
I also found this product called the Sun Stick that has little “flowers” that change color to help you determine the amount of sun an area is getting.
After looking a little deeper, I also found this item on Amazon – which has no reviews so I can’t vouch for how it works:
That should get you started. I hope this helps. Thanks for writing in.
If anyone out there has another suggestion for determining sunlight in your garden, feel free to share it here.
Sunlight is very essential for the plants to grow. They utilize sunlight to prepare food during photosynthesis. For a good garden there is the need of plenty of sunlight. The garden should be created in such a place that gets enough sunlight. There are sunlight testing machines available in the market. We can download its software and connect this device with computer through an USB port. It is very helpful for monitoring the sunlight in the garden.