What's wrong with my cucumbers?
What's wrong with my cucumbers?
Well it's in the title... They were growing great but in the last days or so the leaves started wilting. They always showed some yellowing and I thought about nitrogen deficiency so I fed them with slurry but without success... Any tips?
Is "slurry" the same as Fish Emulsion? If not, try watering with Fish Emulsion diluted in, and give it a few days. It's not like concentrated Nitrogen fertilizers which can burn leaves and such. You also just may be at the limit for what containers can do for cucumber plants, which have large and fast growing taproots. Make sure you have really good drainge in there as well, as you may be hitting rootrot if you don't let the soil dry out a bit between waterings.
No I don't think so. In German it's called "Jauche" and is a natural fertilizer that you get when you let plant parts (often nettle or goutweed) sit in water for a few weeks.
I thought the drainage of the soil was good enough. It's potting soil mixed with ~ 10 % perlite for drainage. The pots I use are textile pots with good drainage and I try to wait wi watering until the soil is at least 3 - 5 cm dry.
Maybe you got have a point with your suspicion that the container maybe limiting the plants... Next year I'll definitely plant my cucumber plants in a raised bed.
The cannabis hiding in the back looks really healthy, are you giving the cucumbers the same feeding regiment?
No, the cannabis is fed with a special cannabis fertilizer.
Give it some, there’s nothing special about cannabis nutrients than marketing. Most have generic watering guidelines if you’re following a specific formula.
Is it in the same soil? Most soil meant for cannabis comes with no nutrients in it, so if the cucumbers are in the same stuff, she’s hungry for everything you haven’t given it.
Is this your first time growing cucumbers? I remember mine needing ton of water, like I couldn't water them enough.
Yes it's my first time growing cucumbers. I water them when the soil at the top of the container is dry two knuckles deep. This happens every few days. Maybe this is not often enough?
Yeah I would say daily watering with that amount they get quite thirsty
Did you chech the ph of the soil?
No, but the soil had a pH of 6 when I first used it and the rain water I use for watering should be around 5.6.
They haven't got spider mite have they? Take those leaves off, other than that it's hard to say what's wrong without seeing the state of the substrate. Like it could be too much water or not enough! Sorry but it's really hard to tell just from the leaves.
I haven't found any signs of spider mites (no webbing).
I've taken the affected leaves off and started feeding the plants with proper nutrients (COMPO Grow Organic for the time being, because its available and at least works great with my cannabis plants). Maybe my home made slurry is part of the problem.
I'd think that the cucumbers don't get too much water because I water them when the soil is dry about two knuckles deep which proved appropriate for Alle my plants.
I used "comfrey tea" as the K component for boosting tomato crops and it worked well, and it sounds pretty much like your jauche stuff. That was really just for the fruit though, for the vegetative growth I relied on the fertility of the initial mix. My cucumbers were irrigated every morning but grown in the ground - the soil was basically always damp though. I know we were talking a lot about drainage, and that's definitely important, but the water demand was very high in the heat so if it seems like your pots are draining well, it might be worth giving them a drench every morning. Pots are quite unforgiving!
Our cucumbers look similar.
Hey, you have those in grow bags?
Those dry out pretty fast and leaf curl like that is usually from not enough water.Water the cucumbers like you want their soil to be damp at all times. Also some nitrogen would be good they look light green.
Edit: also those look pretty fine otherwise. Plenty of flowers and height. Squash and their kin live to kill themselves. It's practically in their nature, if you have fruit it's already dying.
Thanks for your advice. I'll try giving them more nutrients and keep them damp. This will be difficult for me because I've conditioned myself to only water when the top 3 - 5 cm of the soil are dry... I killed more plants by overwatering than uunderwatering...
They alread have fruit but I read that cucumbers keep producing fruit as long as I harvest them before they're fully ripe.
Yeah you have them in bags. It will be impossible to get them wet enough cause they will always drain in every direction. But you will lose loose nutrients if you over water.
Also they will absolutely keep producing but the plant will definitely stop growing as much once they start fruiting.
Bummer.
I'm gonna go with either spider mites or fungus/bacteria. Probably the latter like one of the leaf spots or possibly downy mildew, though it seems a bit deep into summer for downy. That last picture has some pinpoints of color on the leaf that look like they could be spider mite damage, but I'd still put the safe money on a leaf spot. This far along, you'd be able to easily find them if they're there.
Get what you can from it all, maybe hit it with some neem once a week to see if that'll slow down the decline, but I think that's just gonna be cucurbit hospice.
Molybdenum defficiency, maybe?
Not an expert, but I think it's Angular Leaf Spot. It seems to match at least, damage is not passing veins, looks like the underside of the leaves have white stuff on them. It does not look like there is a cure if so though, at least, not one I have found searching the internet.
Maybe they dont have enough soil?
Thanks! It's possible. I now removed the affected leaves and started changing the nutrition of the plants to rule out any nutrient deficiencies that I may have caused by skipping "proper" nutrients and relying on my home made slurry.