Garden heliostat?

[strantor]

The Location I selected for my garden is not great, but is the best I could do in my yard. It is long and narrow, running north and south, and bordered by a privacy fence to the west and a garage to the east. So it only gets direct sunlight for a couple of hours on either side of high noon. I was thinking about building an electronically controlled heliostat that will follow the sun and reflect light down on my garden from dawn until dusk.

What I would like to know is, is it worth my time? Assuming I can make it work and follow the sun like I want, will it actually benefit the plants any? I plan to have a mirror only probably 20sqft, and it will be curved so as to diffuse the light and cover the whole 144sqft garden. So that mirror is only going to provide 14% (at very best) of the sunlight that unobstructed line of sight to the sun would provide; I'm wondering if that is enough to make a difference.

 

[seedcorn]

Do it and find out. I would think being from Texas, sunlight, heat units not a problem. Isn't everything bigger and better in Texas?

 

[digitS']

I am wondering who you could contact about lumens and all of that. How much light would that mirror reflect? I guess, the solar energy people in your state government (insert some joke here about Governor Perry forgetting to abolish his state Department of Energy ).

Seedcorn is on a tear about north/south and missing the blueberry pie in Tennessee. He claims the light was better down there, too.

What your post reminds me of is an English garden shed picture I have. The builder made it so that it could turn so as to catch the sunlight. It looked like it could be turned very easily. That was in cloudy, sunlight-deprived England.

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

Jim, my garden is in a forest clearing, but because of the height and distance, and my east west orientation I'm in a bit better light shape than you.

I still do all I can to get every lumen of light I can. Haven't tried a heliostat though.

I'd say do everything you can to get each drop of sunlight in there that you can.

Heliostat sounds good!
Light colored walkways helps a lot.
White fencing or whatever is to the north will help.

Basically, anything you can think of to brighten things up in your garden helps.

White plastic over dark soil helps brighten things up. Heck, hanging strips of aluminum foil to the north will brighten things. I did that my first year.

Maybe 4 heliostats!