Alex - the trouble with being an amateur astronomer with an off-grid solar power system is that your life must be truly miserable whenever it is cloudy!
I suggest that to make your mood swings less erratic, you should have a second hobby which is best done when it is cloudy and rainy - e.g. breeding ducks, or growing hydroponic lettuces (or other "vegetables")!
To get the best out of your solar system - have you looked at mounting it on a steerable mast, so that it will track the sun from dawn until dusk?
I know a boutique winemaker who wanted to go off-grid (for the house and winery complete). When he built his fixed array (about 5 metres x 5 metres, from memory), he was able to supply 100% of his energy needs in summer, but wasn't generating enough to cover winter, or cloudy days. He built himself a 2-axis steerable mast which tracks the sun all year (basically an oversized Alt-Az mount) and mounted the array onto that, and now he is totally off-grid.
(He uses a bank of commercial batteries - he was a Chemical Engineer at an oil refinery by profession before he became a winemaker, and even he wasn't game to make his own lead-acid batteries!)