Gardening Tips, Common Problems, Vegetable Gardens, Plants

If you are ready to pull you hair out because your cucumbers are dying, being eaten by pests, or just aren’t growing right, you might want to calm down and read this article.

You need to watch your cucumbers when you grow them. They can suffer from various ailments that you can prevent and cure.

• First up is the cucumber beetle. These little pests, in addition to eating the leaves, can carry the bacteria responsible for bacterial wilt. The best way to stop them is to control them. Insecticides, covers for the cucumbers, and wilt resistance cucumber plants are all great solutions.
• Next up is the cucumber mosaic virus and the tobacco mosaic virus. These viruses can cause the leaves of the cucumbers plants to become deformed and turn yellow. The fruits can also become discolored and misshapen.

The cucumber mosaic virus can be spread by aphids (tiny insects) and other infected plants. If you find an infected plant, pull it up and destroy it immediately, before other plants catch it.

The tobacco mosaic virus is spread by smoking near the plants or by touching the plants after smoking. It can be prevented by washing your hands. Both of these viruses are incurable. Again, the only thing you can do is to pull up he plants and destroy them.

• Another cucumber sickness is misshapen or deformed fruit. Don’t worry its not a virus or an inscect this time, it usually means too much fertilizer or too little water.

If you have hollow cucumbers then you need to fertilize the cucumbers more. Another good thing to do would be to keep the soil moist around the plants. The hollow cucumbers are still safe to eat, but they may be a little bitter.

If your cucumbers are bent, like in a c-shape, you might want to water them. This is usually caused by hot dry conditions. It happens more in the late summer, though. It is also helpful to mulch the ground and add compost to it.

• The final cucumber calamity for today is powdery mildew. Powdery mildew is a fungus that spreads across the leaves of a plant a drains them of nutrients, sometimes killing the plant. It causes the leaves to turn brown and yellow and can kill the fruit.

The best treatment is to pick off the dying leaves and fruit and discarding them. Do not use these discarded leaves for compost, as they will infect other plants. Increase air circulation around the plant and keep it well watered and fertilized.

These tips and helpful hints will help you on your way to a cornucopia of fresh, delicious cucumbers!

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When we planted cucumbers in our garden I didn’t expect such an explosive growth. It began with only two tiny leaves, then I saw two more, then another two more, then four more, and now we have a massive blob of vines, leaves, flowers, and tiny cucumbers!

The chaos began in the middle of May, once the garden was tilled, the fence installed, and the plants purchased.  They seemed harmless and cute at the time, but when we put them in to the soil they started their growth. The six cucumbers grew slowly at first, and then they started to climb the small section of wire fence we placed between two posts. Before long we had a large lump spreading across the ground, getting bigger everyday. While weeding the garden I pushed aside some of the leaves and found a flower. The plants were starting to make cucumbers! Over the next few days I would look at them and see more flowers and more leaves. Their growth accelerated. Little lumps started to form behind the flowers; they were what we had been working for the entire time: Cucumbers!

When the cucumbers reach their full size (or you get hungry), gently pull them off the vine. If you let them hang on the vine, the plant will make seeds and stop making cucumbers.  When you pick them, have a bucket of cold water by to dunk them in. It cools them down. Make sure the bucket is large though because for every ten feet of cucumbers plants, you will generally get twelve pounds of cucumbers. Cucumbers can be refrigerated for about two weeks in plastic bags.

Cucumbers are great for any gardener, first timer or experienced. They produce a lot, which is very satisfying and are well worth the money for the plants.

Want to grow your own cucumbers? Here are some great links to get you started:

Bush Pickle Hybrid Pickling Cucumber

Sweet Success Hybrid Slicing Cucumber

Salad Bush Hybrid Slicing Cucumber

Just today the FDA announced that even more states are susceptible to the outbreak of salmonella (salmonellosis) infected tomatoes. On their list of don’t eats include raw: Roma, Round Red and Plum tomatoes. You should also not eat any products containing these raw tomatoes.

As someone who loves tomatoes, I’m in shock. Although I live in Tennessee, a so-called “cleared” state, I’m not so anxious to buy any tomatos in the grocery store. (Other cleared states and regions: Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas in its traceback investigation. Imported tomatoes from Belgium, Canada, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Israel, The Netherlands and Puerto Rico also have been cleared).

If you live here, or buy tomatoes that come from any of these areas, you are affected: Two significant sources in production at that time that have not been cleared by the federal agencies are Florida and Mexico. New Mexico Department of Health officials have said that its investigators are looking closely at product from Mexico. States reporting the highest sicknesses (no deaths have been reported yet): Texas (56), New Mexico (39), Illinois (17) and Arizona (12).

Other states affected are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Given all of this, I am glad that I decided to grow my own tomatoes (and zucchini and cucumbers and fresh herbs), although my plants are not quite to the bearing fruit stages yet. Stil I would recommend anyone who intends on eating fresh, uncooked vegetables anytime in the future, that you grow your own. It’s not hard to do, with our guide to growing tomatoes and other vegetables, you have all the information and sources you need. It’s not expensive, if you frequent our vendors, you’ll find some of the best prices around for seeds, seedlings and starter plants. Space isn’t an issue as most vegetables can grow in containers if that is all you have room for, and tomatoes are especially accommodating as they can actually grow upside-down,
hanging from a basket!

Don’t wait for the FDA to tell you that today’s supermarket produce is not actually the best thing for you, and often carries diseases, germs and other unpleasantness – such as high price tags. Take the bull by the horns and start your own vegetable garden today! See our recent post: Planting Vegetables 101