Sudden Cucumber Death Syndrome

Thanks for the swift reply pete - I am going to repot mine this evening into the larger pots that they will remain in from here on, and then once the weather warms up, I will take them in and out of the house for a week or so during the day whilst they acclimatise before putting them out into the polytunnel permanently.

Cheers

 

Potted my lot on yesterday and today, so they are now a bit more stable - one was a bit weak looking at the bottom of the stem, but I think that it might be one that my daughter bent over as a tiny wee seedling that I subsequently 'splinted' with a couple of drinking straws for a while.

Got a few wee cucumbers starting to grow too

The only thing that is worrying me a wee bit is one of the cucumber plants has got light blotches on some of its leaves (like wee spots that have gone dry) - is that a sign of trouble?

 

Hope you are using water not wee!

You need to water cucumber carefully, try not to splash the leaves or stem, just wet the soil, this might account for the blotches.

 

Sorry, that is my Scottish roots showing!

They are sitting in front of a load of coleus seedlings, so that might account for them getting splashed.

And that is almost certainly the problem then - I had them in 4" pots with trays underneath, and the one I am talking about had water standing in its tray when I went to repot it yesterday - probably been standing in it for 24-36 hours, although not all that deep.

Hopefully repotting it into the deeper pot, with no water tray underneath, will have saved the day - I planted it a bit deeper too, so the compost snuggled up around the stem that was looking a bit weak.

 

So far so good - no signs of any death. They are still at the back of the living room, and unsurprisingly the one nearest the French doors is going bananas!

Its now as tall as me, so just at the top of the canes and string - should I be nipping the tip off now, or should I try and trail it back down again?

Also, if the flower falls off the end of a fruit, will the fruit continue to swell?

 

The flowers drop off naturally fc. I've been nipping the small immature fruit off my cucumbers I don't think the plant will be able to support them yet, they need to be in the ground or a really big pot and have made some good leaf growth. I've found that if you let the first fruit mature the plant stalls and takes a few weeks before it starts producing flowers again, this is even when you've got them planted in their final position.

 

I definitely won't be sowing mine as early next year - the biggest of my six plants is now as tall as I am, and still going! All of them did seem to stall a wee bit after I potted them into their final big pots a couple of weeks ago, but they are off again now - the one nearest the French doors has at least four or five small cucumbers on it - I'm just waiting for them to grow and swell