There's Not Enough Sunlight on The Balcony!

   With all the problems with wildlife on the other side of my back yard, animals are enjoying the garden before I can harvest the produce from it. As a result, I am growing my plants in containers, and putting them on the balcony in order to protect the plants from the animals.

   Raccoons are adorable as well as squirrels are, that is, until you see them in the garden area. Forget growing sunflower plants or corn in the garden as the animals get into it and destroy the plants.

   So, I have a bunch of plants, mainly tomatoes, peppers, and strawberries, growing on the balcony that is in the back of the house. The Peppers and papaya plants are doing fine, but the tomatoes and strawberries are suffering big time. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what is wrong, and my conclusion is that there is not enough sunlight on the back porch.

  I did an experiment and it worked! I had a tomato plant in a bucket hydroponic setup. The setup is easy to use, yet, the plant did not do well. It was not thriving, so I moved it to the front balcony which has more sunlight, and the plant is really growing fast and big!

 If my plants really need more sunlight, the only way I can remedy this problem is by getting a lamp that is similar to sunlight, at least as far as the plants are concerned. So, I picked up a light from amazon.com which had good reviews. I will update and give the report of whether this light helps or not. I still have one strawberry that is alive in the hydroponic setup, and maybe this light can help the surviving plant to live.

Here are a couple of pics of the balcony from the ground, while the new light was on. See how cool it looks!

Most sunlights are just powerful lights, but this one is red/blue in color

Angle from side of the house using the LED lamp I bought from amazon.com


Here is a picture of the lamp from amazon.com

And here is a picture of the lamp holder that is necessary to have to put the bulb in. Notice that it already has a bulb, but not the blue/red LED one that I ordered and is pictured above.