Hi Betty,

I have never purposely shaded tomatos and they seem to do fine. Can't wait to see more answers......

Laura

Betty,
I'll add my opinion which along with two dollars will buy a cup of coffee at a few places.

In my garden here afternoon shade along with a wind break helps. Morning to early afternoon sun is the best from my experience. Dappled shade in the afternoon is ok. Is shade mandatory? No. I've grown tomatoes without it. But fruit set and plant health is better with it most years. I do grow some in the wide open. But trying to locate as many as I can where they can receive afternoon sun. I grow around 80 plants a year so have been able to make comparisons every year. My suggestion like with most other things is try it on one or two and see how it works in your garden before doing all. Jay

Betty,

I have my tomatoes in an area that only gets full sun from approx. noon to maybe 5 or 6pm and I have tremendous yields normally. I would prefer to have sun on them earlier in the morning but I am stuck with what I have and it seems to be working well for me. I am growing squash, okra, eggplant, cucumbers, cantaloupe and beans in the same sunlight conditions and all are producing (or on the way to producing)
Personally, I think mine do better with some shade. That is not to say they couldn't use an hour or 2 more sun and produce even better, but I have a couple of tomato plants over 6' already.
I say give it a shot with a couple of them like Jay suggested and see what happens.

Matt

Betty,

The shading of tomatoes is often practiced by people in very hot climates (Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, parts of California, Arizona, etc.) and I think it probably is helpful to some extent. Certainly some of the people who shade their tomatoes and talk about it on the Tomato Forum here at GW believe it is helpful in that it either kept their plants producing during the summer heat or it kept them in better condition so that they performed better in the fall when cooler temperatures returned.

I don't believe I have ever deliberately covered my plants with a material to shade them except if I was addressing a specific issue.....like when hail, or a hungry deer, defoliated a plant to the extent that I thought the remaining fruit would get sunscald and be ruint if I didn't shade the plant. Or, I have shaded fall tomatoes that are transplanted into the ground on a very hot day to protect them from transplant shock, but I only shaded them for a day or two.

However, I certainly have experimented with planting tomatoes where they get less than full sun. The tomatoes planted at the west and north ends of my garden get afternoon shade from nearby trees, so they have sun from sun-up until about 2 p.m. and they produce just fine. I have tomato plants that are in full sun from sunup until about 5 p.m. and they produce very well until the excessive summer heat slows down production/fruitset in July. They probably would do better if I shaded them from 2 or 3 p.m. on, but I haven't tried it.

This year I moved the tomatoes I grow in containers from an area where they used to get sunshine from sun-up to sunset. This year they are in two areas. In one area, they get shade until about noon, and then get full sun until sunset. In the second area, they get sun from about 9 a.m. until about 3 p.m. Although it is still fairly early in the growing season, all these tomato plants in containers are substantially larger, sunstantially healthier, and have set more fruit in their shadier locations than they did in the full sun location for years before. Based on what I'm seeing so far, they are much happier with 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day than they were with 12 or more hours of sunlight daily. However, those are container-grown tomatoes and I have more control over their soil moisture and fertility than I do with the plants that are in the ground, so I wouldn't compare these to the same plants in the ground in the veggie garden because the ones in the ground are grown in drier conditions.

I have toyed with the idea of shading a row or two of my tomatoes with shade cloth or aluminet this year just to see if it makes a difference, but I have not yet decided whether or not to do it. If I do it, I'll probably use a 40% shade cloth and will position it directly over the plants so it shades them during the part of the day when sunlight is most intense....roughly 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

You can use many materials to shade plants.....shade cloths in various strengths, aluminet shade cloth which differs in that it supposedly keeps the plants not just shaded but cooler than other shade cloths, fabric like old sheets, burlap, even lattice panels, etc. You have to be sure the plants are not too shaded or production will slow down. You also would need to put the shading material high enough above the plants that they won't touch the plants and keep them artificially short or crowded. Nor would you want your shading material to impede air flow significantly (unless you have high wind issues, and then it might be a good idea) because a lower air flow could contribute to disease issues.

Research conducted at Lane,OK, in the 1990s showed that shading plants improved yield in only one of the six months studied. I haven't looked at the study recently, but it seems like they set out plants on Apri 1, May 1 and June 1 in two consecutive years and shaded them once they'd been in the ground for only 3 weeks. Thus, they concluded that shading did not significantly improve production. That is only one study, though, and they only used two varieties of tomatoes, and they deliberately chose two varieties known to set poorly in heat. So, I don't know that I'd put a lot of faith in this one study.

You'll never know how it will work for you in your soil, your climate and with the varieties you grow unless you try it. So, if you want to try it, go ahead. However, I don't think it is "required" or "necessary" or even that it is "guaranteed" to be beneficial.

If you do it, I hope you'll report back on your results.

Keep in mind that shading the plants might give you less stressed plants, but it may or may not give you better fruit set, better production, better flavor, etc. So, even though it might be helpful, it also might not give you any results you can "measure".

A lot depends on your climate. In general, the hotter AND more humid your area, the more plants will benefit from shading. I think heat + lower humidity does not impede fruit set as much as heat + higher humidity. Also, soil temps matter,and at this time, lower soil temps are better than hotter ones. So, if by shading your tomatoes, you are also shading your soil, that's another benefit.

This is one of those ideas that is very appealing because we all know how much better we feel in the shade than in full sun, so that alone makes me think it is worth trying. Just be sure you don't shade them so heavily that photosynthesis is greatly impeded. : )

Dawn

This year we planted some in the shade and some in the sun. Prior years our vegetable gardens have had full sun. I guess we will find out which works best. Full sun has always worked for me, but that was in Northern Oklahoma. Now living in central Oklahoma it may change everything. Best wishes on your crop this year,
Jan

Betty,

Just to throw one other opinion in here...I'll tend to agree that some shade is better than none. Why? Well, I have absolutely none! I get sun on my tomatoes from about 9AM - 8PM and my yields and growth are nothing like Hockeyfan's...and i should know...we're brothers.

I also have very little wind-break which cannot help either. Like some others have stated, try some shade here and there and see what happens. I will probably be trying this shortly myself.

Brad

To expand a little on my conditions which is different than many on this forum and why I think shade helps maybe more here than is other locations. We are in the wide open. I mean flat and nothing southwest of me for miles. So along with shade usually comes some windbreak benenfit also. Unless you were to build an overhead shade with no sides. The shade I try to use are trees and the east side of buildings when possible. Doing this I have observed better fruit set and less signs of stress on the plants which is what I attribute the increase in pounds of production too. In other areas where you have more natural windbreaks and shade like trees and hills I would suspect you wouldn't see as much a benefit as I do. I do feel you need several hours of full sun. Which with the sun rising by 6:30 and say shade not till 2-3 I'm getting 8 hours or more. JMO. Jay

What I am trying to do about shading my tomatoes is by growing the 7 to 12 ft. tall large head sunflowers in stratigic places, even in some of the rows where the tomatoes are growing, so they will be at least shaded from the brutal afternoon sun.
With a 100 or so tomato plants that's about all I will be able to do either economically or effectively. At least I HOPE it will be effective!

Barbara

Barbara,

I used to always plant sunflowers in and around my vegetable garden. Sometimes I planted them in rows alongside the fence, and sometimes I planted them in rows right inside the vegetable garden. I love the way they look and they also attract tons of beneficial insects. I even color-coordinated my sunflowers with the season, having Italian white and Jade green ones for spring, bright yellow ones for summer, and red, orange and deep golden orange ones for fall. But then I ran headlong into the "law of unintended consequences".

After having oodles of sunflowers for 5 or 6 years, I started having oodles of stink bugs, and stink bugs cause all kinds of damage to veggies. So, when I started doing research on stink bugs, I discovered that you should plant sunflowers away from your garden to attract the stink bugs away from your vegetable plantings. (sigh) So, now I no longer put sunflowers in my veggie garden.

We now have sunflowers planted in the dog yard in groves, so they create more shade for the dogs and I even worry those are too close to where I have my container grown tomatoes this year.

I don't plant any regular sunflowers in the veggie garden any more because of the stink bugs, but plant some 10-15' away from the garden to draw the stink bugs away from it, and I moved all my Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia) out of the flower border bed that surrounds my veggie garden and put them in another bed farther away.

I love sunflowers and I'll always have them, but putting them in the veggie garden isn't a part of my garden plan any more.

And the stinkbugs? I've only found one so far which is a very positive sign because last year we had tons of them as early as May. I don't know if the sunflowers in your garden will attract stinkbugs to your veggie garden, but wanted you to be aware that it is a possibility.

Dawn

Dawn,
I find that information interesting. I planted some on the south side of my garden as I had been told they attract many of the harmful insects away from the garden plants. Didn't realize they would draw stink bugs. Might have to rethink growing them close to the garden. I guess I didn't dig deep enough. Jay

Dawn...
Oh great! Another issue to deal with!
Well, I can remove the sunflowers scattered about in the actual rows of tomatos, but the other shading area where I planted them should be well enough away from the tomatoes, and where I can patrol and check for them and remove any I see.

I've never had a problem with stink bugs before,even though there have been years when I had sunflowers planted in the general vicinity of tomatoes, such as near cucumbers, but there is always a first time. I don't need any more problems to deal with!

Do you know of any organic things I could use to repel or control them? Do they, like skunks, have no natural enemies to control them? No other predator bugs, or birds, plants, etc?

Barbara

Jay and Barbara,

I planted and enjoyed the sunflowers for several years before the stink bugs arrived. Of course, it is possible the stink bugs would have arrived even if we had no sunflowers too, you know. Y'all may never see stinkbugs in your garden. I didn't for the longest time while gardening in zone 8 in Texas (in three locations) and in zone 7 in Oklahoma. So, I probably went over 20 years as an adult gardener before I started having trouble with them. I don't remember my dad or grandfather or any of my uncles having problems with them, but they all did use some chemicals, so maybe that's why. Nowadays, I believe stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs are hard to control even with chemicals, so they've probably developed resistance to them.

The people who seem to have the most trouble with stinkbugs are those in zones 8-9 in Texas and similar areas. Once the stinkbugs arrive, their tomato growing season is pretty much over because there's so many stink bugs that they ruin the fruit. There's a guy in south Texas (maybe the Houston area?) who posts on the Tomato Forum who's had some success with making or buying tulle or organza bags and putting those over his individual tomatoes to keep the stinkbugs off of them. With 80 tomato plants, there's no way I could do that.

Bill P., who used to post on the Tomato Forum and several others as Gone Fishin', had stink bug and leaf footed bug problems in his zone 8 garden for several years before they started showing up in my garden, which makes me wonder if they're moving further north every year. It was reading Gone Fishin's posts that taught me what stink bug and leaf-footed bug damage looked like, so I knew what to watch for. Don't get me wrong, I've always seen a stink bug or two around, but since 2006 or 2007, we've had large numbers of them and they are incredibly hard to control if you don't find them and destroy them while they are small nymphs. They are harder to get rid of than grasshoppers and my poultry don't seem interested in eating them either.

Barbara, I haven't found any predator that will control them, nor have I found any organic control THAT I WILL USE. Some people say a rotenone-pyrethin combo product will kill them, but I won't use either one--rotenone because is it so dangerous and pyrethrin because it is dangerous and sometimes deadly to felines, and I love my cats and won't use anything that could harm them.

For me, all that works is handpicking them off the plants and drowning them in soapy water or vaccuuming them off the plants with a hand-held mini-vac. They're smart too. If you don't get them the first time you try, you'll never get a second chance because they are smart and will hide when they see you coming the next time.

Many people who garden organically plant a strip near their garden (but not right beside it) with soybeans, sunflowers and millet, because stink bugs are attracted to those. Then, when those plants are covered in stink bugs, they spray them with a chemical pesticide (I don't know which one because I don't use chemicals, but I assume there must be one labeled for stink bugs.) I have considered that but really hate using any chemical product at all here.

I don't know how to descibe their stinky smell, but if you ever crush one of them, you'll know it when you smell it.
Dawn

Dawn...
So I had to do a little stink bug reading online today. Yet another pest to be concerned with already, LOL. I hadn't even given a thought to them until your heads up.

Anyways, one site said they are attracted to yellow...ok, I think we have that figured out if they like sunflowers. Funny...if they are so fond of sunflowers you'd think they'd leave the tomatos alone. Maybe it's the moisture. But I guess only a stink bug knows, and they're keeping it a secret.

Then the site said they are attracted to light, (at night). I was wondering if a light couldn't be rigged up away from the garden area, and then sticky traps set up around the light so that they'd get stuck on those. Maybe in the sunflower planted area. This would be along the same principle that people use light to attract fleas by setting a bowl of soapy water close to a light at night, and drowning them. Humans are a sinister lot are they not?
Well, when it comes to veggies, and in particular tomatos, this is war. And we are taking no prisoners unless it's to the trash can.........or in Dawn's case, the chickens. Oh, I forgot, even the chickens don't want to have anything to do with stink bugs.

Well, if these things start showing up around here it WILL be war. After the floods this spring, and all the hard work, and now the incredible heat, I am going to be on high alert for bad bugs trying to destroy all my efforts I put so much into.

Speaking of the very hot weather...I am seeing a LOT more insects lately, and it seems that the heat has brought on the influx. I do see holes in some of the small plants, but I am determined not to spray with anything, and figured the plants will outgrow minor damage. Unless I see something serious, I'm not going to obsess over it. What is really delighting me now is noticing all the beneficials visiting my flowers, flitting from one to another. I even left some weeds in various places because I noticed that something was making holes in them. Better the weeds than my veggies :)

Barbara

Barbara,

I've been seeing a bug explosion too, but mostly good ones as far as I can tell. We finally have a good dragon fly and damsel fly population rebuilding. We normally have oodles of them, which delights me, because they are great predator insects. However, in the drought we had here from August 2007 through March or April 2009, they mostly left because all the ponds and creeks dried up. This morning I even had dragon flies and damsel flies in the veggie garden....flying around, and sitting on stakes and cages. There's a lot more butterflies this year too. The moisture has helped a lot of our desirable bug populations rebuild, although moisture is no longer falling here.

I checked all the sunflowers in the dog yard (at least to the extent that you can check sunflowers that are 8'to 10' tall) and didn't find a single stink bug there, so I;m hoping the heavy spring rains might have drowned any that had overwintered in mulch.

I don't know if yellow sticky traps would work, but you could try them. Here at our place, if I put out a sticky trap, it is covered with a billion insects by morning. Because we're in a very rural area and are not far at all from the Red River, we have a gazillion bugs of all kinds, so anything that attracts bugs here will attract a whole lot of bugs. For yellow sticky traps to be effective, I'd have to paint sheets of plywood yellow and coat them with Tanglefoot and then hope I caught more bad bugs than good bugs.

Also out and about this week? Oodles of frogs, including the tiny little tree frogs who like to live in my tomatoes that are growing in containers, and lots of turtles and snakes. I could do without the snakes.

If it is too hot for all of us to be outside all day, why in the world isn't it too hot for all the pest bugs?

I have seen a few white-lined sphinx moths around the night-blooming flowers and that is nice. Their population usually is especially heavy here in June and July.

Dawn