I cant figure out what is wrong with my zuccini & cucumb

Wed Jun 27, 2012 3:39 pm

I don't know what is going on with my plants

. It is a new raised garden bed all my other plants in there are fine, they just are not growing really. Am I watering, not enough, not enough sun? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. They have been in the ground for 2 months now. Hope you can see these pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/81360406@N ... 72bb8fd323

Let me know if I need to post the pictures differently

Thank you for your help

Wed Jun 27, 2012 5:38 pm

Did you start the seeds yourself, and if you did, did you direct seed into the raised bed or did you start them in cell packs or whatever? Squash, if started in pots, can stunt out if their roots hit the bottom of the pot sometimes.

It's hard to guess otherwise. Are they getting at least 8 hours of direct sun? Enough water? Too much? What did you fill your raised beds with?

If all other conditions are ok (water, sun, soil) sometimes it's simply lousy seed.

Wed Jun 27, 2012 6:28 pm

Without more information, hard to know exactly what happened, but they are indeed very sad.

I don't really believe in lousy seed, except seed that doesn't germinate. If the seed sprouts, it has done its job and after that what happens depends on the conditions the plant finds.

So I would wonder what the soil is like and have you fertilized? They certainly look under nourished. The pale areas on the leaves look like sun scorch, like they were put out in the full sun without being hardened off well enough. But a healthy plant would have recovered from that long before that and be putting out new undamaged leaves.

Nedwina is right that people say squash and cukes don't take well to transplanting. However, I start all mine indoors under lights and they are doing great outside now.

I would dig one up and look at the roots. I expect you will find that it has hardly any root system. By now it should have huge root system. Whatever has happened to these has left them with no way to absorb nutrients.

But I would give up on them and start fresh. If they haven't done anything in two months, they aren't going to.

Wed Jun 27, 2012 11:22 pm

I get my plants from a women at the farmers market by me. Ummm....The soil is Kellogg's (all of it). I have not fertilized I don't know what to use. I have a soaker hose in the garden. I am not sure how long to water for, I usually leave it on about 20 min in the morning about 7am. The 2 that have flowers I started in a pot. The other 2 I just stuck right in the ground. And it did not take long for the little cucumber to shrivel up and die on me.

My tomatoe plants are also not getting larger. My steak tomatoe has a tomatoe growing on it, the plant got a little bigger but not by much. The cherry, and roma, have not grown ither. My pepper plants are not getting larger, but they look healthy. I know it is off topic a bit but they are in the same bed, I don' know if this helps at all. it is a bit discouraging

Thu Jun 28, 2012 10:37 am

Kellogg's makes a range of soil products (who knew? is it the same Kellogg's that makes breakfast cereal?). I don't know which you have, but it sounds like the soil is at least part of the problem and you need to be fertilizing.

Tomato Tone is a good organic fertilizer designed for tomatoes, but there's lots of organic fertilizers out there. Picking something randomly is better than not feeding your plants when they clearly need something.

The other issue would be water. You said you are in Calif? Southern Calif? Does that mean it has been hot and dry? I have NO idea if 20 min in the AM of watering is enough or too much. Is that 20 min of drip irrigation? 20 min of pouring watering on? Assuming these are in the ground, not containers, you want to put water on until it is puddling, let it soak in and then do that two more times. And then don't water again until the top couple inches of the soil dry out.

With the soaker hose, after you have watered, dig down and see how deep the soil is wet. If it isn't wet 6" down, you didn't water enough. If it is wet 6" down, you probably don't need to water every day.

In your first post you asked about "not enough sun?" Are they in full sun? They need at least 6 hrs of direct sun a day. If you are in So Cal and it is getting hot, it is best if that is AM sun, with some protection from hot afternoon sun.

But seriously at least re the squash and cukes, now that you know a little bit more about watering and feeding, I would start with fresh plants. Those have been so stunted for so long, no matter what you do now, they aren't likely to thrive.

Tell us (or show us) what the roots look like, when you dig one up.

Gardening isn't hard, but there are some things you need to know getting started. Perservere!