Cucumber leaves are drying (Pictures attached)

[plant lover]

It looks like my cucumber leaves are drying out but the cucumbers themselves seem pretty happy. In fact, I already picked 3 of them and they were delicious. Except the last one, which was a bit bitter. I'm attaching pictures of what they look like now. I don't know even know if this is a problem or just the life cycle of the plant. I would really appreciate any help on how to prevent this or any information that sheds some light into why this is happening. Thanks!

[Francis Barnswallow]

Mine look just like that (maybe a little worse) and I think my cuc plant is on it's way out.

[BP]

The first pic looks like you have powdery mildew. If so, the plant is on it's way out. The fruits that are currently on it will grow much slower than they would without the PM. I learned last year that it does not pay in the longrun to plant any curcibits close to eachother. Give them space, even more spacing than the seed packet suggests. Airflow is an issue with PM also, as well as watering methods. Water the dirt and not the leaves. By spacing further apart airflow will dry leaves faster after a rain.

This is what happened to me last year (first year gardening)

I went from this
[img]https://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb9/BP991/garden%202010/010.jpg[/img]

To this
[img]https://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb9/BP991/garden%202010/022-1.jpg[/img]

To this. The white on the leaves is PM
[img]https://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb9/BP991/garden%202010/008-5.jpg[/img]