this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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What's wrong with my cucumbers? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/gardening
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

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?

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[–] just_another_person 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] feedum_sneedson 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That probably won't be a good enough fertiliser. My cucumbers needed watering every day in the heat. 10% perlite will aerate the soil but is unlikely to change the drainage very much. Just a few things to think about. Good luck!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks for you thoughts! I didn't know perlite didn't do anything for drainage. I honestly thought aeration and drainage were more or less two sides of the same coin.

[–] feedum_sneedson 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It will help, but depending on what's in the organic part of the mix you could put perlite in at 50% and still find it was going anaerobic at the bottom of the pot, particularly with the new peat-free mixes. The best way I've heard it explained is that if you took a bucket of Angel Delight (like American "pudding"), how much grit would you need to add before it drained properly? A lot of these newer retail mixes just wet out into a slurry with zero structure to it. Making a free-draining mix is actually a huge challenge.

[–] SchmidtGenetics 9 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The cannabis hiding in the back looks really healthy, are you giving the cucumbers the same feeding regiment?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

No, the cannabis is fed with a special cannabis fertilizer.

[–] SchmidtGenetics 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] czardestructo 6 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I have a good chuckle every time I walk down the fertilizer isle of the home improvement store. 50 plus varieties of hyper special pot fertilizer that is totally better than miracle grow, they claim, for 5x the cost. What ever happened to three simple numbers on the bag?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah those numbers can be insanely hard to find. Honestly I just grab a good full spectrum one or just miracle grow since it's not like I'm dumping hundreds of gallons across acres.

[–] SchmidtGenetics 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It’s so you can’t mix and match brands. They all have slightly different variances.

Some do say you can use with any other brands, I use technaflora myself. They market as hydro nutrients over “cannabis” and have a great recipe for cannabis I follow. I also mix up generic nutrient batches and use my runoff for my garden once in a while too. They all the NPK on the front, and the micro contents too. It’s the usual 3 part basic components (base, flower and veg) and the extra micros (thrive alive b-1 red, magical, awesome blossoms and sugar daddy).

[–] SchmidtGenetics -1 points 5 months ago

To be fair, some plants do have different needs. You can of course tailor the mix yourself to meet these needs, but some do need more of one particular nutrient over others sometimes. Cannabis likes to feed heavy, especially calcium and magnesium (micro instead of the macro NPK nutrients) so you usually need to supplement those with regular feed.

And I should say at least a 3 part since they have vastly different needs in veg and flower, so the bare basic “generic” nutrients won’t actually cut it for a decent harvest. Yeah you’ll harvest something atleast though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, I'll try feeding the cucumbers with my cannabis nutrients. It's COMPO Grow Organic by the way.

Yes, they are in the same soil but I didn't use special cannabis soil but instead a simple potting soil mixed with some perlite for better drainage. I also added some horn buckle before planting.

[–] SchmidtGenetics 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Okay, some potting soils come with some nutrients or time delay nutrients, so if things were fine and went down hill, she ran out of stuff to feed on.

I could be off base, but I would start there, check the soil, see what they say to start feeding if they do.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Is this your first time growing cucumbers? I remember mine needing ton of water, like I couldn't water them enough.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Yeah I would say daily watering with that amount they get quite thirsty

[–] LordCrom 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Did you chech the ph of the soil?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] feedum_sneedson 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] feedum_sneedson 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

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!

[–] ThrowawaySobriquet 3 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Our cucumbers look similar.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Maybe they dont have enough soil?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Molybdenum defficiency, maybe?