by matt walker » Sun Mar 11, 2012 5:15 pm
I'm becoming more and more convinced of that, George.
One of the neat realizations is that, at my latitude, this will make a large difference when the sun is low, at the outside of the seasons when I need warmth the most. In the height of summer, it's won't change too much, other than the fact that I can now kinda plant "vertically." Like, similar sized plants, lined up from south to north up the slope of the bed, will have more sun and less shading effect on their neighbors than they would on flat ground.
Also, it's important to note that in those soil temperature links sometimes when they are talking about "sun angle" they really mean latitude and the larger angle of the overall earth's curve plus the effect of distance the light travels through the atmosphere. I wanted to bring this up to say that I realize I'm not going to change my latitude this way, and the sun still isn't going to be the same as a similar slope at a more southerly latitude. However, it will be a heck of a lot warmer than the same spot tilted north, I believe.