Help!! Help!! My cucumbers are dying!

Help please - wot I done wrong?

I planted my 4 cucumber seeds (from T&M, designed for greenhouse cultivation) about 3 weeks ago. They germinated quickly (on a windowsill) and now each plant has two big whatsanames - cotyledons? - and the first true leaves are just emerging.

Except they've started wilting and one is leaning over like its stem can't hold it up. They have been watered and kept in the greenhouse with a paraffin heater at night. Last night was really cold so I brought them into the house.

Any advice will be really welcome.

 

I think you were possibly a bit too quick in putting them out into the greenhouse. Cucs are very intolerant of cold and even with a heater on there's a good chance at this time of year of chilling them.
Ours are just putting out their second pair of true leaves and are in 3" pots on a window sill. I'll not put them out into the greenhouse until late April. I'll be sowing ridge cucs that will be raised in our small polytunnel next week, but again these will spend a week or so indoors before they go out.
Cucs soon flop over and really require a bit of support once the leaves start developing. I use small twigs to start with before I tie them in to netting in the greenhouse.

 

Do you have a Max/Min thermometer? That would be helpful in knowing if your heater is doing a good enough job. My Cues and Toms have a minimum of 10C at the moment.

The other thing which can be a problem with Cues is damp around their stem. When I plant them into larger pots I shape the soil so that the water runs away from the stem - and I plant them in a little mound for the same purpose.

Having said that, at the 2-leaf stage, in a 3" pot or so, there's not a lot you can do in that regard!

 

I always water potted cucumbers from the bottom by standing them in a tray of water, never from the top. As Kristen says, they are prone to rot if water touches the point where the stem meets the soil.
When the cues are planted in the ground I push a 5 cm wide piece of pipe down to the roots and water through that.

 

I've bought a gas heater for this year - haven't tried it yet, only just bought the half dozen panes of glass to finally build the Plant House ...

... its too far to realistically run an armoured cable, so no option for electric fan heater, but I'm hoping that Gas will have less water vapour than paraffin (and be more controllable and cheaper). 40 quid off eBay including a full 19KG bottle and 2 empties - which I guess would be about £30 each for the "hire contract" alone

 

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Advice much appreciated!

I have a remote temperature sensor in the greenhouse and it got down to 5C on the Friday night, which I guess was too cold. On the Saturday I took the cues into the house as the night forecast was even colder. However I wasn't able to revive them -- the cotyledons have wilted further and the stems have gone all spindly. Time to throw them on the compost, I think!!

I'll start some more, this time I'll keep them on the windowsill for a bit longer, and water them as advised.

I don't think the paraffin heater is much good. Actually I have two in the (quite large) greenhouse but they only seem to make the temp about 2 degrees higher than the outside, at most. Unfortunately I can't have electricity in the greenhouse, so I'll look at some of the other options mentioned.

 

I`ve found that cucumbers can be affected by the fumes given off by paraffin heaters.:thumb:

 

"this time I'll keep them on the windowsill for a bit longer"

The weather is on your side now! The warmth and longer daylight hours will bring them on quickly, and the nights won't be so cold. Plants also available in our local garden centre now (but that's cheating, right? especially if you have a few seeds left in the packet)

 

My cucumbers are growing fine in my unheated greenhouse I'd guess there about an inch maybe inch and a half now.

I also have a paraffin heater but i don't use it simply because it creates a black grime on the glass which does not help with getting the sunlight in