Hi Folks.
We have not been able to grow cucumbers in our garden due to soil conditions, heavy clay. We tried in cut off barrels, and no luck. They planted with sand in the bottom, then potting soil, and some holes drilled in the sieds, so they do not get water logged.
What is wrong, not growing.
All help appreciated.
WJB
Plant 1
Plant 2
Looks like something is eating the foliage or some sort of foliage mould, but what I would do is remove one of the YELLOWING leaves use a magnifying glass and turn the leaf over to see if you can see any tiny little mites, Red Spider Mites, naturally they are not red at all except for the female at breading stages, but they are a pale brown colour, very difficult to see with the naked eye and you will have to look very carefully for a few min to see if you can spot them moving about, they can kill of all the foliage on the plants in a few days in the right conditions, other signs of this mite is VERY FINE webs even finer than ordinary garden spiders, if it is not that, then the next thing to look for is mould, I cant see your plants recovering now as they are too far gone, but IF you want to plant more, give your containers a good scrub, use new potting/compost and bin the old stuff.
I can never control Red Mites with anything other than a parasitic wasp that lives ONLY on red mites, but you have to introduce this in an enclosed area like a porch or house, if your interested it is called (Phytoseiulus) I get it from a company WWW.defenders.co.uk
even if they dont ship to the USA, the site is helpful for lots of insects like aphids, red mites, white/greenfly etc. maybe someone else can help you more. Good luck. WeeNel.
