Do I have enough light?

I bought a house last fall and put a garden in in the spring.  Unfortunately I sited it poorly and it only gets sun after noon.  There is another spot in the yard that gets sun all day long, and I am thinking of changing it. (now I have two 8'x2' strips with 2 feet in between them; the new garden would be 16x2, with no access to the far side.  I thought access was necessary, but after my extensive experience, I figure I can reach across)

I planted tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, basil, and coriander.  I have tons of tomatoes and the basil grows like crazy, which my wife says is proof that half a day light is adequate.  However, the determinate tomatoes have grow much more vigorously than I expected and they chocked out the peppers completely. I think the excessive growth is an attempt to find more sun.  My wife (who doesn't want the garden where I want to move it) thinks I am crazy; if I have lots of tomatoes, why would I change anything.

So, I am looking for advice from more experienced people.  Is just afternoon sun adequate, or will I gain something from all day sun?   Is abundant basil and tomatoes proof I have enough sun, or evidence that I need more.

Hi toller, when you say you get afternoon sun, how many hours of sun does the garden get.
As to your monster tomato plants, determinates sure do take up a lot of room and typically do best when planted every other square... sometimes pruning helps too.

I have 2 boxes on the side of my house that get sun around noon to sundown. The plants are doing fine. I have a new box that gets sun earlier in the day and gets shade later in the day. That box is doing great. I think it's a combination of sun exposure and better compost. I recently got some great compost and added a thin topper in my older boxes and used it as part of my MM in my new box. Because of the success of my new box, I plan to build another one next to my new box, so it gets the same amount of sun.

They get sun from maybe 12:30 to sunset.

Toller wrote:They get sun from maybe 12:30 to sunset.

so thats about 6 hours right now?

camprn wrote:

Toller wrote:They get sun from maybe 12:30 to sunset.

so thats about 6 hours right  now?

Well, maybe 7...

Toller, 7 hours is enough sun so the garden should be fine where it is. So far the results you have seen support the facts. And most plants need 6-8 hours of full sun anyway and you have that. In regards to the other location you would not need access to the back of that location because as you said with it two feet wide you can easily reach the back area from the front side. So, both places will work nicely...if you can convince the wife you would be able to double your garden space and grow in both places.