What's Eatin' My Cukes?

[Tabasco]

Greetings,

I'm a beginner gardener.

I used 1/4 of a plastic 55 gallon barrel to raise each of my sets of cucumbers.
They always have something poking a hole here and there, so I use soapy spray and that had controlled it.
The plants have lots of little cukes on them and have been growing like crazy.

Just the other day a couple of the plants started looking pretty bad...

If anyone can help and needs more info I would appreciate it.

[skiingjeff]

Looks like a fungus of some sort. Could be mildew or leaf blight. Possibly a 10% milk spray would be an effective fungicide. See the link below for some good info on cucumbers - good luck!

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/hortanswer ... ntTypeID=9

[Tabasco]

skiingjeff,

Do you mean 9 parts water and one part cow's milk?

[hendi_alex]

Just looks like some kind of stress to me. Too much water, too hot sun, wind or rain abrasion. I wouldn't worry about it too much, but just for insurance might plant a couple of potential replacements, just in case.

[Marlingardener]

Tabasco, you have the proportions right. You can even use dry milk--the stuff that comes in a box. Just make sure the water/milk mixture is room temperature, and that you apply it when the sun won't make prisms of the droplets and burn little brown marks in the leaves. I usually use the anti-fungus spray about sundown.

[Tabasco]

Thanks for the help all.

[rainbowgardener]

Well .... cukes are very prone to powdery mildew and the milk spray works better preventatively than as treatment, especially it doesn't really help once the disease is severe. So it is a good thing to do in any case.

But really, I agree with hendi_alex, that at this point it isn't looking particularly fungal, more general stress of sun, wind, etc. Plus a few holes which are likely either insects or slugs.

[Tabasco]

I'm putting in some diatom for what are almost certainly sneaky little slugs.

We did have a couple of brutal wind-rain storms the other day.

[skiingjeff]

Tabasco, sorry for the delayed response, I was out at the doctors most of the day today but it looks like you got the right answers. Good luck with the dukes

[Tabasco]

They're alive!

Not abundantly prolific, but they survived my ignorance:)

[imafan26]

For the holes in the leaves check for snails and slugs. Beetles can also do that kind of damage. If your cucumber has holes in it there may be pickle worms.

For things that bore into the cucumbers like fruit flies and such, I find nylon stocking work pretty well. Wrapping the small fruit in a newspaper tube works for things like fruit flies that like to sting young fruit, but they need to be changed when they get wet.

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/V ... mbers.html