Sun tracking (times it arrives and leaves the yard); only 3.5 hours direct sun!

 Thursday May 13^th 2021

• Sun arrives:

• 9:40am sun arrives at west edge of yard
• 10:55am arrives at east edge of trays (ie trays fully lit) placed on chair/table in their normal position
• 12:00pm arrives at west edge of bottom step
• 12:10pm bottom step fully lit
• 12:20pm top step fully lit (--> since shade on top step by 3:40pm, = only 3.5 hours of direct sun!)
• 12:20pm MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF YARD IS IN FULL SUN BRIEFLY (essentially whole yard just not quit the margin)

• Shade arrives:

• 12:15pm SHADE arrives a west edge of yard
• 12:30pm 16”of shade
• 1:00pm 56” of shade
• 1:15pm 72” of shade  --> So, the line moves at 72” per hour (that’s more than 1” per minute!) or 6 feet/hour
• 1:30pm:  I can move chair into west bed in front of peas and be in shade
• 1:45pm:  shade has reached west edge of patio stones
• 2:10pm:  shade has reached west edge of second row of patio stones, so about half an hour per patio stone.
• 3:40pm:  full yard is back in shade

So, the yard gets only 3.5 hours of direct sun in any one spot!  And yet a vast array of vegetables do fine here.  (Peppers an exception.)