Hi there! I am brand new to this foram, and need some gardening help
My cucumbers have tiny black bugs all over the underside of the leaves, though the leaves are still ok now, I'm afraid they will eat/destroy the leaves and then no more cucumber How do I get rid of them?
Also my cabbage/brocolli and cauli's are all looking a bit sad, with some leaves half dead. Is this caused by bugs or too much rain or not enough sun?
Is there a cheap and easy spray to put over all my garden that will gte rid of all critters and keep my garden healthy?
Are they super small like little black dots, if so they sound like aphids to me. I had them all over my cucmbers and while I have read alot here on them, they seem to come from out of no-where. I mean I know they don't but I never seeing them crawling anywhere, they just seem to appear overnight on my plants. If they are really tiny, they may be aphids - insecticidal soap worked for me, I had to spray every leaf. I actually made a tub of soap water and basically washed each leaf to get them off. They also will come off with water from the hose , but they re-appear quickly, the soap kept them away for awhile, but it was very hard getting each leave. Also do it early in the am, or late at night, if the sun is hot it will burn the leaves. Now that it is cold here in Fl, the cucumbers for me have died away. Good Luck, if they are not aphids, I hope you can get more info on them, maybe post a picture.
Is there a cheap and easy spray to put over all my garden that will gte rid of all critters and keep my garden healthy?
Nope, there's no such thing. Anything you could spray that would "get rid of all critters" (that you don't want), would also get rid of all the ones that you do want, like ladybugs, lacewings, predatory wasps (that prey on the ones you don't want), honeybees, etc. Then your garden will be worse off. You need to figure out what pest/problem you have and deal with that, on the plants affected.
Soapy water spray (made with soap, not detergent which can burn your plant leaves) as Avonnow mentioned is a good place to start.
Re the cabbage and broccoli leaves. What are your temps these days. We are in winter here with tons of snow, so you must be in summer. Is it getting hot? Are your cabbage and broccoli in full sun? They are cool weather crops that don't like heat or full sun.
Great thanks, will def try the soap water! They are tiny black dot bugs, so are perhaps aphids.
Yes we are in full hot muggy summer, and the cabbage etc are in full sun. That may be the problem, is my first go at a proper garden, so lots to learn!
Yeah one of the first things you need to learn in veggie gardening is the difference between cool weather crops and warm weather crops. Lettuce spinach swiss chard and other greens are cool weather crops, along with all the brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower), and a lot of root veggies, carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, radishes. Pretty much everything else is warm weather, some needing more warmth (especially soil warmth) than others.
The cool weather crops can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, meaning it is unfrozen and dried out a bit. Many of them are fast growing and over early-- lettuce spinach broccoli tend to bolt (go to seed) as soon as it gets hot. So you can plant lettuce and then when it is done, plant squash in that spot. I plant broccoli right in front of where my tomatoes will go. By the time the tomato plants are getting big and it would be crowded, the broccoli is done and I pull it. Peas are another cool weather crop that are over and done with early to make room for something else.
Next come tomatoes, peppers, which can be started indoors early, but can't be planted out until danger of frost is past, the soil is warmed up a bit, and night time temps are consistently in the mid 40's (degrees F = 7 or 8 degrees C ). Books would tell you 50 d. F, but I always rush mine a bit. Then corn and beans. Last would be the cucurbits - squash, cucumber, pumpkins - which need everything really warm. with soil warmed up to at least 60 d F (= 15 d C).
Here's a nice little article about all this:
https://cmg.colostate.edu/gardennotes/720.pdf
But the point I was getting at is that most of those cool weather crops, don't really like it hot. There are exceptions, swiss chard and many of the root crops like carrots, can be started early, but grow through the season, but still they do best when started while it is still cool.
One thing you can do is partially shade you cool-weather crops during the hottest part of the day. You could try putting up a piece of lattice in one spot or you could use some very very light fabric as shade-cloth.
How do I get rid of them?
