The Power of the Sun

About 3 months ago I went to a local nursery and purchased this awesome peach tree. Why is it so awesome you ask? It will produce 3 to 4 different varieties of peaches on one tree! I was floored when the guy told me that and ran home to tell Keith about this amazing tree. Well, naturally because he's always looking at history channels, how is this made channels and discovery channels this was not news to him at all. :(  Oh well, I was pretty excited. Anyway, when I purchased it, here in SoCali we were in the May Gray weather pattern, which turns into the June Gloom pattern. This is when (if you live somewhat close to the ocean) the sun most days does not come out until early afternoon. I mentioned that because I followed the nursery guys instructions when he delivered the tree, keep it in the planter the first year until after all of the fruit is gone. After that time put it in the ground. Okay, so my problem was that no fruit was growing and I wanted fruit! I went back to visit, he told me to give it fertilizer and wait for the sun. I did that and a few weeks later I stopped by to visit to tell him that the leaves looked a little brown and still no fruit blossoms. His response was, more water and wait for the sun! Well, for the last couple of weeks the sun has been breaking through earlier in the morning and I must say those leaves are looking perkier.

Today when I was in the garden I noticed that one of my eggplants has two blooms! Naturally I am very excited but also very concerned because it is in an area where it gets limited sun. I also noticed that the tomatoes, the zucchini plants and the strawberry plant that sits on the edge of the patio just don't seem to be really thriving. Either that's the case or I'm just impatient. :)

Even with moving to open area of yard, you can see the shadow  from the house starting to cover the  plants at  4:30 p.m.

I went online this afternoon and looked at a few videos on growing vegetables and time and time again they kept mentioning the need for these plants to received 8 - 12 hours of direct sun in order for their fruit to fully develop. My thought was that too much intense direct sun and heat would not be good for the plants, but boy was I wrong. So, I have adjusted my garden's configuration once again because most of my plants are shaded by our house and patio starting from the early afternoon. It's a good thing that they are in pots. We will see what happens now that the sun is out more and they are in a sunnier location.