That's such a hard call to make especially since you're down south. I would be more inclined to have sun though and would try to fugure a way to build this bed on the slope if that's where the sun would be at least 6 hours a day.

Starting to build the bed now would give you time to amend the soil properly and be all set for next years planting. Best of luck whatever you decide :)

I had good results by painting the shiny "aluminum" looking paint onto poly film (visqueen) and lining the garden bed as a mulch. This reflected light from the bottom where you would not normally get any light. As the plants grow larger this effect diminishes with the shade. But, it seemed to greatly help my plants when they were young, small and lost in the shade down low to the ground.

Then, I used the painted film by gluing it onto plywood and I stood the plywood on edge reflecting light onto the garden when my plants would have normally been in the shade. Another way to explain would be; notice when the garden is shaded, place the painted plastic in the sun (opposite from the fence or house) deliberately reflecting the light into the garden.

I even tacked the painted film onto the fence to gather more light when the sun was shining on the garden. Sounds messy-looking but, as my plants matured with eggplants and peppers up front, tomatoes in the middle and cucumbers climbing up the trellised fence in the back, my neighbors marveled at he sight.

I had fantastic results! This method certainly helps with bugs since, everywhere they crawled, they encountered the sunlight they hate. Since I had about 4 hours of natural sunlight and, I never knew how well that garden would've grown without the painted film, I have no comparison info for you.

I agree with Bigoledude. Reflected sunlight is the way to go when direct sunlight is limited. I have red plastic mulch under my tomatoes and have added more of it behind them because I get only 5-6 hours of direct sunlight per day.

I sure wish I had an acre of open ground! But I do get tomatoes.

What are you going to use to build your raised bed? I built mine out of 16" concrete blocks. Even where you have a slope they work out just great. I patterned this after a nice lady I met on here somewhere named Janet from Texas. I have so much stuff growing in these very short beds with only 8 inches of dirt that I am just amazed. We only had to dig very little to accomodate slopes in the yard and the beds are connected with wire hog panels as arbors-also thanks to Janet! I am west of you in Villa Rica and it does in deed get hot out here but I find that the raised beds let me control the water more as well-I sometimes water more often when it needs it but I can tell long before I have a disaster!

There are some pictures of the beds I did this year at myspace in my garden albumn.

Kelley

Here is a link that might be useful: Kelley's myspace page with pics