How much sun is too much for tomatoes & peppers? I have various tomatoes, peppers and a few herbs pictured and don’t know how much is too much sun. For reference they are getting a LOT of sun every day where they currently are, morning and afternoon sun. I’m in zone 10a Texas so the sun is brutal. My first time gardening and I don’t want to kill my plants!
ANY tips are appreciated.
by Silent-Antelope-8652
13 Comments
Just my experience, but the answer to how much sun for peppers and tomatoes is “all the sun”. Just make sure they have plenty of water and nutrient rich soil. Be careful because potted plants like that dry out much faster than plants in the ground.
They dont like heat over 90 F so you may see wilting or lack of production in the hottest months but now is perfect for them to bask in the sun and start producing fruits in no time
Enjoy your garden!
The whole thing
All of it, just get a shade cover for when it starts getting above 93-95 in the afternoons. It’s comin!
They love sun and almost can’t get too much. What they sometimes don’t like is heat & they won’t set fruit if it’s been too hot. In Denver some folks use shade cloth during the hottest part of the summer.
For peppers I usually give them all the sun and water they need, for tomatoes, they don’t like too many hot and wet days, I usually plant them in the autumn, but don’t mind, unless you have 10+ rainy days in a row.
Heat is the issue, not the sun. They both want all of the sun. My garden gets 8 to 12 over the summer season.
The hard part is keeping them hydrated. One plant per large pot will improve yield.
This time of year all of it. Come June I’d find a spot they get 4 or so hours of direct sun in the morning and shade the rest of the day. Our UV is much more intense in the summer so the plants don’t need as much direct sun every day.
10a Texas, OP must be in either Galveston County, Corpus Christi area or the RGV.
I’m in 9b Brazoria County, Texas
I’m going to be a bit of a contrarian. Some afternoon tree leafy canopy or screen filtered/indirect reflected light would be beneficial if possible, especially for the peppers and herbs, but also the tomatoes. One, those pitch black grow bags are heat magnets, especially in the full South Texas sun. Secondly, tomato plants this far down the globe with our more intense light we get, greater than 90% + of the US, tend to get too much of a good thing. A break in the afternoon or a 30-40% solar screen isn’t such a bad idea. Our light here is significantly more intense than a more northern latitude such as Chicago.
I’ve been growing tomatoes mostly in raised beds for years, all in a mix of full sun plus tree canopy lightly filtered light. I get my full sized indeterminate tomatoes to produce well into August and some years carry across the entire summer to produce again in the fall. None of my friends growing tomatoes here in all day no breaks full sun have their tomatoes last nearly as long.
In my experience as much as possible. As the plants grow, just be prepared to water everyday if needed. They’ll drink a lot!
In Texas you’re going to want to pull them off the sun in another month or two depending where in Texas.
Everyone says full sun for toms but in my experience if you live in a hot climate they’ll last a lot longer with 4-5 hours of morning sun and then afternoon shade
>>”How much sun is too much for tomatoes & peppers?”
I share your concern. Growing tomatoes and pepper in NE Texas, I plant them in a location where they start out getting full sun and then when the days get real hot and real long, usually early June, I put 35% shade cloth over them. I try to position it so as to shield them especially well from the afternoon sun. The peppers seem to tolerate “slightly too much sun” better than the tomatoes, but there is a point of excess for both where it starts doing more harm than good. Heat stress lowers disease resistance and a downward spiral can begin. (Once the diseases start, the pests move in, etc.) Part of how well this all works out depends on the specific varieties of course. Not all tomatoes or all peppers are equal when it comes to tolerating climate extremes.
Full sun for now and under a shade cloth when it gets hot