This what I found when I got home from work today...my "Cool Breeze" cucumber plant, getting more of a breeze than we bargained for!
Uh-oh spaghettio's!
Hornworm possibly?
Oh Sequee, I'm so sorry :(. Your set-up looks amazingly like mine, great minds of course.
p.s., totally OT, what was the name of the cabbage you like so much? Time for me to start worrying about that...*g*
The plant's still going strong, so maybe it will survive, it having the most cucumbers on of any of my plants...of course!!!
I didn't think horn worms did cukes, but that sure is shat my frist thought was. I did the CSI: Garden thing, but didn't find any sign of anything.
Soloist Cabbage, and I have 6 for them going to seed, so DON"T buy seeds!!!
I didn't think hornworms did lemon balm until last year when they ate mine almost to the ground! LOL
If there's anything left out there when I get home, I will do a more thorough search!
You may find the Hornworms have donned their Cloaks of Invisibility. Mine do. The can be right in front of me, and I don't see them. And, heaven forbid that I take my eyes off them if I DO finally get them located, because they disappear again, instantly, if I look away..
Okay, I'll wait 'til there are seeds :) Thanks :))
I've never had a problem spotting them before, but since I didn't think they bothered cukes, I may not have looked as hard as I shoulda!
My hornworms often borrow your Cloak of Invisibility, but I can usually track 'em down by the frass trail. I pick them off with twigs used like chopsticks and feed them to my chickens. Janice, what a shame about your cukes!
What's that cabbage like? I've never heard of it.
No more damage done, and the cukes are going great guns...they're jes lookin' a nekked!!!
Now that's good news :)
g_g, my chickens won't touch them. I got the same reaction in FL when I tried to get them to eat palmettos. They all crowded around, looked at the offering, looked at me, looked at "it" again, and walked away muttering and shaking their heads...
LOL - I can just picture that! Humans, lost her mind...what next, catfood?
Oh no, they LOVE cat food. Especially canned. I'll see if I can get a picture of them eating with the stray. One cat, many chickens. The most disturbing thing is that they love rotisserie chcken best...
Maybe the key to feed the hornworms to the chickens is cooking them? Ever try rotisserie hornworms? Yum.
Looks like deer damage to me. And it seems that you are using the plastic deer screen but this plant was outside the screen - or am I seeing wrong?
Man, you have good eyes!!! I can hardly see that when I'm in front of it!
I was thinking it might be something larger than a bug because of the way it's lopped right off - and then no new damage. A hornworm that got away from me would have devoured the rest of the plant by now. It's a very odd place for a deer to have gotten to, but nothing's impossible. (IThis section is right by the walkway in front of the house and near the street. Behind that's half an acre of cleared land, bordered by "the jungle" - a more likely placed for the "wild life". On the other hand I've NEVER seen a deer up here, just wouldn't put anything past them!)
If you guys had the hard winter that we did - the deer are skinny and hungry. I've had more problems this year than ever before. I use the same type of deer screen. You're plant looks good inside the screen - so it is something that could not get through the screen or netting.
This message was edited Jul 1, 2010 4:00 PM
Well, 2 days now with no further damage,and the cukes are growing in leaps and bounds. Say your prayer for me!!!
Done! White light and good vibes and all that!
I have lost most of my winter squash; the vines just withered and died. Even the moschatas, with solid stems, went, so it doesn't seem like SVBs, nor do I see signs of them. My summer squash, right next to them, are all fine. I wonder whether winter squash don't like blackberries, which are on the other side of that row. So you could send me some good vibes, too, for the one or two plants remaining!
OK, backatcha!!! (And I'll have plenty of the Chinese Cabbage seeds for you, too!)
sg - it's just that one plant. The fencing encloses my raised bed (8'x16') and the raised bed extension (8'x8'), but I have 10 pots with potatoes along the outside/streetside of the enclosure, and the cuke in question on one corner, a very large winter squash on the other corner, and baby amaranthus just coming up along the middle. The others are fine.
you need to hire a bug guard to stand in your garden dressed as a scarecrow to catch everything . LOL