East to west is almost always the best sun exposure but only you can determine the sun plot in your yard - especially where it will be in the prime of summer (mid-June) growing.

If it is obvious that a slightly canted bed of NE to SW or vice-versa will get you more sun then by all means use it. Nothing says a bed has to run straight N-S or E-W and sometimes the diagonal gets the best exposure. :)

Dave

It's sometimes really hard to know the best position until all the leaves are on the trees and the sun's position is known (through the course of the summer). You might guess right (before the trees leaf out, etc.), or you might guess wrong.
Maybe you should just dig up some of the yard where you think it's best, and plant things there this summer. Maybe even use containers for some of the smaller things.
Then you'll have a better idea for next year, where to put the beds, which will probably require more work.

Another thought is to make your best guess now, and maybe end up trimming a couple tree limbs to let more light in?

I did a sun study when first trying to garden this property. Spent about a week tracking sun patterns and timing how long the sun hit different sections. That has been very helpful.

I seem to have a mental block though, Dave, about how you determine which orientation gives you the most sun exposure. Or why a NE to SW diagonal bed would give you more? My house seems to sit on the property with the front door more or less facing East. I do believe it is not exactly due East but I haven't checked it with a compass. I have both NS and EW beds and plan on having both again with the current redo. I have shade in the afternoon, and so sun from the west in late afternoon, is not going to cast a shadow, so I am planning on putting a bed N/S on the West side of my plot for beans and peas with the tomatoes EW in the last bed in the North of the plot so I won't be shading the rest of the beds. I'm just debating what I want to do with the rest of the plot. I can line up all the beds East to West in the middle and East side of the plot and that will give me a good amount of both orientations. Or I can do the opposite and put the rest N/Sm, but that will leave me with only the tomato bed gong E/W, which I think is not enough.

prairiemoon,
In the northern hemisphere, the sun during spring and summer rises north of east, tracks across the southern sky, and sets north of west. So an E-W exposure generally guarantees that all plants along this line face south and get abundant sunshine.

A NE-SW bed would get more morning sun, while a NW-SE bed would get more afternoon sun. If you have trees blocking the afternoon sun, then you'd want NE-SW and vice versa.

I seem to have a mental block though, Dave, about how you determine which orientation gives you the most sun exposure. Or why a NE to SW diagonal bed would give you more?

I didn't say it would give you more but that it might give you more depending on many other factors. And I only used it as an example of what often helps residents further north and east..

We have no way of knowing where trees are placed, the height of the house, what shade a neighbor's house might provide, etc. etc. That is why I said only you can plot the actual sun track over your yard.

As Slimy Okra said the sun doesn't rise in the east but north of east in the summer so a NE to SW bed might give you better exposure over the whole bed throughout the day depending on all the other factors.

There are lots of internet sites where you can find the exact path of the sun over your location for any date of the year. But where it is today April 2nd isn't important. Where it will be mid-June is important when it comes to bed placement.

For example in Boston the sun today was riding at 53.7 degrees altitude but by June 21st it will be over 71 degrees. That is a big change. Trees it may not have cleared at 2 pm today may very well be no shade problem by then. (I only picked Boston because i don't know where in MA you live but you can get more specific details if interested.)

It is just an example of how shifting a bed just a few degrees off East could make a big difference in sun exposure if there is nothing directly in the way.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Boston sun data

Thank you everyone. Your responses have made me think about the sun and its trajectory here and I will have to give this more thought. The diagonal bed is not an option. Too difficult to mow around it. I am thinkining that my best option may be an L-shape, but I will have to wait to see how the sun shifts to determine where to position the E-W section. Thank you all, will update you later.

Well, my mind is getting a visual this morning, I think it was too late last night. [g] I do follow about the sun rising a little north of east and that a little diagonal orientation to accommodate that would give the beds a full sweep of the sun if it is unobstructed. And that you are right, Dave, it is individual to your property.

I also notice that the sun is lower in the sky right now on my property and the times that the sun is on the garden is different then summer. I used your link to look up the altitude of the sun now, in June, last September and last April, because I wondered how different the height of the sun is now as opposed to as it lowers in the fall and it's actually not that different.

I know that the sun rises a little bit north of east on my property at some point but I didn't realize when I noticed that, that it wasn't like that all the time. And I don't remember what time of year it was when I noticed that.

This morning, it is rising straight in front of the front door of my house, but behind the house across the street. So it always takes a little bit in the morning to get above the roof of that house and my house and hits the western most part of the yard and creeps across and then the house is shading a small edge of the vegetable plot on the East side. I haven't plotted it in awhile, but today I will have opportunity to do that, if the sun stays out most of the day.

If the sun is directly facing my front door as it rises this morning, does that mean that my house is not sitting directly on the EWNS compass points, but a little bit South of East? It would seem that if it's rising directly East of my house, then a true East/West orientation of my beds would give me the most sun possible, could that be right?

Thanks, SOkra and Dave