Each of my 3 cucumber plants has a cucumber growing (like actually getting bigger, greener, etc.) and a few small cucumbers either just flowered or about to flower. Some of them seem to go yellow when the flower dies and then one has gone brown and dried up. Is this to do with pollination? Is there anything I can do about it?
Should add I have never grown them before, so I really don't know anything!
Thanks.
Cucumber question
Would love to know this also....I'm having the same problem, although my plants are still young so maybe it's just a natural thing going on to put more energy into the ones that it feels like. I have no idea....I just want them to hurry up....Cucumbers are my family's favorite, with 4 kids that munch them down in no time, I the ones on my bush really need to hurry up.
Looking forward to the answers on here.
Very probably lack of pollination. If they fail to develop further after flowering, that's usually why. You can pollinate yourself if you're so inclined, I take a male flower, rip off the petals, and swish it around in the female blossom. Some people use q-tips, or a paintbrush, but I'm too unorganized to do that.
If they aren't getting little flying visitors to polinate them you will want to keep an eye on anything else not self-pollinating, as well.
HTH
That's what my guess was but I also looked up the type and now I'm really confused! I am growing cool breeze cucumbers which are an all-female variety and not supposed to require pollination:
"A few varieties of cucumber are parthenocarpic, the blossoms creating seedless fruit without pollination" (from wikipedia) - parthenocarpic means "virgin fruit".
So does this mean that the ones that are not developing are just not going to develop and there's nothing I can do about it?
astcgirl - what type are yours?
True. A plant knows how many children it can provide for and will abort the rest. The only thing that you can do is make sure the vine is supplied with nutrients. Cool Breeze is parthenocarpic and noted for setting very early. As the vine sizes up it can support more.
I am growing Cool Breeze this year, too, so it's nice to know what to expect.
Great, thanks, that is very helpful. I have 3 plants, all around the same size just now and all growing one cucumber after having a few flowers each so that totally makes sense.
Gmun I'm not sure of which types I put in my garden, this was my first attempt, I got frustrated waiting for them to pop up so I added more, I labeled them all with plastic knives and marker and the darn sun bleached it out so now I have no clue what's what. I don't really care, all I want is to be able to grow 1 cucumber.....I am trying so hard to do organic but each day I'm picking little black caterpillars off all my other herbs and mint. Luckily they haven't discovered my cucumber plants yet but I'm sure they will. The 3 day washdown with castile soap is not doing much.
Anyway enough of my complaints, you were asking what cucumbers I was growing. In there somewhere are 1 or all of the following: marketmore, west india burr gherkin, Mexican Sour Gherkin (this is under the foliage and hidden but I know this one is there), Beit Alpha and Poona Kheera.
Below is a picture of the section of cucumbers I have growing....as a first time veggie grower, I know I'm probably doing something wrong but I'm learning by my mistakes.
This is what they look like in the beginning...happy
Then they start going white ....so they don't look as happy anymore
Then they shrivel up in protest and fall off. (sorry it's unfocused but you get the idea of the little brown shrivels in the pic)
This is mainly on the plant on the left, the one on the right (tallest) has only produced a very few flowers so far and none have been female yet. (may be a different variety)
Soon as Mama plant is happy enough she will give the "all clear" and the happy little babies will grow up to be make YOU happy!
Your garden looks wonderful - green and healthy!
Thank you sequee...I guess I'm just a little impatient :) I don't have a lot of room so I bought a box square garden that is 8 x 8 that you walk into, I love it and can see that it's going to be magnificent when I work out all this "veggie growing" kinks...hehe
I'm actually from Australia and remember as a child having a little veggie garden in the back yard, we never used pesticides nor fertilizer (other than the occasional horse paddys from next door) and that garden was crazy every year. I want my kids to see the enjoyment of gardening and being able to pick their own veggies.
I'm sure those seeds will be well planted, germinated and nurtured for years to come. Is there any better gift to give a child?
astc mine are doing the same thing, although like I said I have one growing per plant... hopefully as they get more established they will flourish! I am growing veg for the first time too so far not too many bugs although my indoor herbs seem to be covered in flies and I am trying the castille soap thing too! So far, not very effective.
Here is one of my cucumbers, the larger one has continued to grow since I took the photo, the one on the left you can see going lighter has shrivelled up though.
I was wondering - if the cool breeze cucumber is parthenocarpic and doesn't produce any seeds, where did the seeds I planted to grow it come from?
gmum - I'm guessing "Cool Breeze" is a hybrid. So I assume at least one of it's parents was a seed producer. The offspring of that parent is probably "Cool Breeze" which is seedless.
Got a headache yet? LOL
Right, Honeybee. probably both of the breeding lines. Actually the parthenocarpic cultivars will produce seeds if pollinated. They were originally developed as green house cucumbers. Quality declines when pollinated.
Thanks :)
astcgirl, Florida gardening is like nothing else in the world. There are more bugs and diseases than anyone could believe. You have to do a lot more. I actually (in Palm Beach County) ended up doing most of my stuff in containers.
As to all the little wormy thing Bacillus thurengiensis is considered organic, and will take car of many of the crawly things that will eventually find much of your garden buddies. There are also organic ways to control the nematodes that are the bane of tomatoes, peppers and lots of other things. Some of the Master Gardeners at the Extension Service were very helpful, but some were "chemical" gardeners.
There's lots of help here on Dave's, too:)
Good luck...
BT is a wonderful tool for all caterpillar pests. I've had rain for 10 consecutive days. I had horn worms and the borer caterpillars just devastating my tomatoes. I mixed up some liquid BT in a spray bottle and an hour after I put it on, a big black cloud came up and I thought it all washed away. The next day I went to spray again and began to find dead caterpillars.
Last year I used the BT dust and rain did wash it off so fast it wasn't effective. The spray bottle is much easier and faster than the duster too.
Now I'm plagued with stink bugs and slugs.
catmad - I'm so glad I don't have to garden in Palm Beach County anymore. I was never able to grow cucumbers or melons because of powdery mildew. However, I could grow the very long carrots - I can only grow the short ones here because of the clay. Peas grew well all winter long. Tomatoes were tricky because they hate the Florida summers, but I usually managed to grow a few in large pots during the winter. I gave up on sweet corn because the squirrels always got to it first! Broccoli and Kohlrabi grew very well. Herbs were never successful, I don't think they liked growing in horse manure.
But on the plus side - all those tropical fruits - I miss my mango tree the most. I also grew lychees, carambola, bananas and probably other fruit that I can't remember.
Thank you for the suggestion on BT, I will look for it today. I actually did an experiment today with the Castile soap, I found about 50 caterpillars and horn-worms on my veggies (ewwww) and gave them a spray.....counted to 10 and they were all dead! I was so excited that it actually worked, I think I just need to keep on top of them and come out every morning to spray. Only problem I for-see is that when it rains it will wash away. The BT liquid seems like it will be good for that.
Now today I noticed these little stink bugs on the cucumber leaves, no holes or anything yet so I left them on there.....should I pick them off too? What do the stink bugs do to the cucumbers?
Not really sure if this is the right place to put this but it's related to my thinking if not anything else... and honeybee, yes my wondering should give me headaches - although, more often I think it gives the people around me headaches!! Anyway, after my cucumber seed question I was hoping someone can answer this for me too...
I was looking up herbs and came across this info on tarragon on wikipedia "French tarragon is the variety generally considered best for the kitchen, but cannot be grown from seed... it is normally purchased as a plant"
So where does the plant come from? Does it just mean that it's really hard to grow from seed and not recommended or.......?
Thanks!
Honeybee, I planted a mango tree, Golden Nugget, I think. It is now old enough to have fruit...sob. I have told my former neighbor down there to please go get them, and the loquats, avocados, guavas, and probably pecans. There's a pineapple field across the street that is now abandoned.....
I'd still rather be here :)
French Tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus ) is one of those plants that are normally vegetatively propogated. One can root cuttings or divide root clumps. Under most conditions it either does not flower or the seeds are sterile. There are quite a few common garden plants that are general vegetatively propogated. Strawberries, Irish potatos , sweet potatos come to mind.
I'm so pleased I found this website, it's just so full of info - and full of people with lots of info :)
Have just been reading about vegetative propagation, I've never gardened before this year and I'm fascinated by everything, I just find it all so interesting!
Thanks for answering!
If your cucumber fruits continue to die while very small, you may also want to check your plants for powdery mildew. Cucumbers are very susceptible to this and it will cause the fruit to abort. Same goes for squash.
Another organic control of caterpillars (and other chewing insects) is spinosad. Don't spray it while honeybees are active, wait till evening.
catmad - the Mango tree was "Brewster" we waited seven years for our first mango, then two years later we moved here! Some of those fruits weighed 2lbs. The unripe, large seeded, tiny things in the supermarket don't even come close.
Then there were the bananas! Talk about s-w-e-e-t! Don't know their name, but they were large. Someone told me they were "horse bananas." We were lucky some years to get bananas, other years a storm would blow down the plants. It took 18 months to get fruit. When we sold that particular house, the new owner said he would only sign the contract if we promised to leave the bananas. We did, but I took rizomes with me to my next Florida home. Unfortunately, I planted them in an area where salt water came from a water softener, and they died. :(
Then onto our next Florida home... we purchased some rizomes. They never gave us fruit. This was the same home where we planted our Mango tree.
I'd still rather be here, too ^_^
I'm new to gardening ... "haole" gardening. Born and raised in Hawai'i with mango, banana, papaya, lychee, tangerine trees in our yard (my brother and his family live in the old homestead now and are still enjoying all the fruit trees).
Appreciate learning from all of these threads. I planted burpless cukes and will research whether they need to be pollinated now that I know that may be a problem.
Thanks folks!