Ive always ran shade cloth over my veg plants at least. Usually 40-60% in Zones 9 and 10. But Ive also known many a Norcal greenie dudes to do 30% all through flower to try to prevent foxtailing and all that. But even with side shading on my greenies, it never affected my yields. I averaged 2-2.5 lbs every 4x4. Which was in the range, sometimes better than my indoor buddies. This pic kinda gives a good perspective of the shade fabric side walls in action.
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Nice! Well, I was thinking since I’m outdoors now I’d like to get as much as I can since I’m using the sun. I’d be very curious to see a side by side comparison of completely open air yields vs poly or shade roll yields. Your house looks great BTW.
Much appreciated! The coolest side by side on outdoor plants Ive ever seen was a dude in the Santa Cruz mountains growing monsters. They were 8x8x4 ft plots amended with old potting soil. I saw em mid July, and they were massive. But he did a really cool comparison with a couple in the full shade under redwood trees, and most in the full sun. The full suns were like 15 ft tall, and about 25 ft around. But crazy enough, the ones in the full shade were only about a foot or so smaller. They ended up being a few lbs less per plant(12-13 vs 14+) but it really blew my mind lol. That spot also got raided that year, and the cops found most of the full sun ones, but missed all the full shade ones. Dude had a gift for hiding monster plants in plain sight. Permaculture at its finest lol
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That’s awesome. Sucks his plants got popped but the shade ones not getting found is too cool for school. I can’t even imagine what a 25’ round cannabis plant looks like up close and personal. Phenomenal! Maybe I’m putting to much emphasis on the direct sun thing after reading about your anecdotal evidence. Perhaps diffused poly on only two fence panels might be no big deal after all. I haven’t grown since my house got raided many years ago so I’m uber excited to get back to it and to be able to be outdoors with it too!
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The sun is so bright that even on a stormy overcast day it puts out more light than most grow lamps. 
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I want to harness every single ray!
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That spot got raided every other year like clockwork. I was helping out just a couple days that year, and that hill was getting buzzed by black helicopters all day. Good ol CAMP
Its a tree almost lol. We even climbed into a couple plants to see the training. Its a surreal feeling climbing thru a plant to see the giant main trunk on it
I feel like I should also mention that outdoor theres some really great tricks to find out if youre getting enough light to flower. The easiest is a simple DLI map. Heres one. For example, where Im at, DLI is 50+, can clear 70. So I can easily drop a 30% shade, and still have more than enough DLI to flower big buds, until about sept, then they need that full sun. I go by 45 DLI as a baseline for flower
The other trick I really like is using one of those free sun tracker apps for smartphones. You can track the path of the sun at different times of the year, and youll know exactly how many hours of direct sun a day youre getting. Ive ran more than a few greenies that only got about 5 hours of good direct sun a day. And the yields were always there. Its not quite as scientific as the DLI, but together you can get a pretty decent idea of what youre working with.
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For the sides I recommend black ground covering stuff, 
I think they call it weed blocker 
and fasten with zip ties then a layer of reed fencing or bamboo if the budget allows
Shade cloth & when rain threatens a plastic hoop house or hog/horse fencing panels(rigid steel wire grid stuff, like 16’ long)
And 
well, maybe not the poodle
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Black helicopters are no bueno! Never heard of any of the DLI stuff. I’m used to a single 1k HPS so learning how the sun light works is going to be more involved than I initially thought. I’m all about learning though.
So if 45 DLI is a good baseline I’ll be hurting in August, September and October as I’m in the Western PA region. So maybe a shade cover might not be such a good idea for me. Perhaps diffused poly might be better?
Thanks. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of blocking light from one entire side of the plants with something like that. So when the sun is above the plants facing down on them for only a few hours is all they need even though the fabric will be blocking the sun when the rays are hitting from the sides?
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The only thing I would suggest is to go as cheap as you can this year. This is your learning curve. You will have all the bugs worked out by late fall and then next year you can target where to best spend money. Also as autumn progresses the plants dont need as much light if they are already into flower
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Great advice, thanks. I have everything else ironed out at this point. Just need to pick the covering for the two panels to figure out. The rest will unfold over time indeed.
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Ok, what do ya’ll think about green mesh fencing? It looks like it’ll keep things private. Will light be an issue?
thatd be a great option! theyre just a bit more pricey than a cheapo shade cloth. also depends how fancy you wanna get with it. some people just toss the plastic over the hoops and hold it down with rocks. but im far too ocd for that. i need my nice wiggle wire rails to get it all perfect, and not flying away in the wind lol. but those are kinda hard unless you live in ag land. where my farm was we just went to a greenhouse supply yard to get all that stuff super cheap. i cant speak to how easy it would be to get out there
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Lol I’m the same way. It has to be neat and presentable! I was looking around online for the diffused poly but it seems like you can easily see through it. Do you have any recommendations for something that does show off the “ugly weeds” but lets some light in to?
I was also thinking about this stuff because it’s great for privacy. However, it might stop too much light. What do you think? I really need something that does a little of both. Some privacy but still lets the sun through.