Need Help - No Cucumbers!

[KEP]

Hi There,

I am new to the forum and I am trying to grow some cucumbers. This is the first attempt and so far there are no cucumbers. It's a compact variety called Picklebush. I have noticed that on the topside of some of the leaves it looks like little bug tracks. It kind of reminds me of someone taking a white sharpie marker and making designs all over the leaves! It has flowers, but no cucs. What's going on?! Any ideas?

[L]

Male cucumber flowers arrive before the female flowers and the male flowers do not produce the cucumbers. It may be a case of waiting for the femail flowers to arrive. The cucumbers need humid weather and lots of water to swell the fruits. It is obvious which flowers are the females as when they are flowering there is a very tiny cucumber behind it. Male flowers can be removed from the plant as they make the cucumbers produce seeds which make them bitter to the taste.

Hope this helps

[The Helpful Gardener]

Sounds like leafminer...

While all sorts of things are recommended for leafminer (for instance I found a professional site recommending permethrin for treatment of veggies, despite it's EPA label as a known carcinogen!) I would use only one thing, azadirachtin based insectisides. This is the active ingredient in neem oil, and so far has only been found harmful to a few aquatic invertebrates (and that is still under study).

The good news here is that leafminer is rarely fatal to the plant, and as L points out, it's not that hot yet, give it some time...

HG