I planted some pickle cukes in my blueberry bed. The bed was part empty until next year when I get more blueberry plants, so decided to put something in the corner of it,

Bed was modified with sulfur to a PH of 5.5. The cukes were doing good, but all of a sudden some of them wilted and died. Did the acid soil finally kill em or is it something else?

From the look of your picture, I would bet Vine Borers (the bane of our existence this summer). Check the bottom of the cukes where they meet the ground. See if they look like they are rotting. If so, that's most likely your culprit. If they are not totally dead, you may be able to cut out the borer and re-bury the stem and they may survive. Also check the bases of your other vines for fresh borer damage. If you can catch and destroy them (or their eggs) early enough you can salvage the plant.

quote:

Originally posted by JamesM:
From the look of your picture, I would bet Vine Borers (the bane of our existence this summer). Check the bottom of the cukes where they meet the ground. See if they look like they are rotting. If so, that's most likely your culprit. If they are not totally dead, you may be able to cut out the borer and re-bury the stem and they may survive. Also check the bases of your other vines for fresh borer damage. If you can catch and destroy them (or their eggs) early enough you can salvage the plant.

Thanks.

Will they kill my squashes and tomatoes too?

I have never seen vine borers on cucumbers. Usually cucumbers get a bacterial wilt from cucumber beetles.

ecsoehng, that is what I usually see as well, but from what I have read, the can attack cukes. Looking at the leaves in the picture, they look nice and healthy (just like my zukes did last week) other than very wilted. With vine borers, that is how most things seem to die – looking nice and health in the morning, then wilted and night and completely dead the next day.

Allenwrench, is the base of them rotted or appear rotted like with VBs? I have never heard of them attacking tomatoes, only vining plants (cubits?). Also, if your base is rotted, you should be able to find them in the stem. If it is not rotted, it would be something else as your cause. But with the wilts, usually the leaves start turning sickly. From your pics, they look like they just wilted, so if the base of the vines don’t show VBS damage, and the leaves look healthy, you may want to look for other cucumber pests or ailments (as in something attacking the root system rather than the leaves).

They look exactly like my watermelon. My latest casualty had a big hole/tunnel under it. After posting problem here looks like voles are my problem. Check for a hole/tunnel under the dead plant

There's three wilts I know of for Cukes:

Bacterial, fusarium, and verticillium.

Mine are dying, again, like they always have. I'm suspecting bacterial wilt...I want to go out later and take pics and see what I can observe on close look.

I spent 2 hours this morning on squash bug patrol, which is doing EXCELLENT controlling that bane of my existence. If I can get a good strategy for the cucumbers next year, that will mean I've learned to control two of my biggest, persistent problems.

Good Lord man, do something - ANYTHING - about that soil. Add some compost, add some mulch, add some water - SOMETHING! This could be virtually any sort of wilt or pest, but what I see is neglect.

Every pic you've posted recently about your failing garden shows rock-hard crusted soil full of crabgrass & poor struggling plants, plus you wondering/whining "wha happened".

You've claimed that you've done an enormous amount of reading on organic gardening. So where's the digested output?

Flame away guys if you want, but I've yet to see Allenwrench absorb any of the terrific advice he's gotten from anyone here. Instead he posts the same basic problems over & over & over ad infinitum.

Oh, & Allenwrench - your cukes aren't "dead", they're just dying for ATTENTION.

Breezy, you are a little tough on him, but I think it's time for him to get down and get his hands dirty remaking his garden beds into a happy place. I bet half of the problems will disappear when he does. allenwrench may get the trophy for the most questions asked in a month That's not necessarily a bad thing. Keep asking, but like Breezy said, time to get moving on that soil. My 2 cents worth, make a big 3 bin compost area, expand the garden and concentrate on making the soil the best you can, adding as much manure, compost, coffee grounds, shredded leaves, straw and anything else you can to improve that soil. It's not too late for a compost pile to be ready for a fall spreading on the beds if you get on it now. A suggestion to make weeding easier on you is to put a barrier of some kind between the grass and the garden to keep outside plants out. Lunch is over, gotta get to work.

Dear Blessed God - thank you Oh2fly!! You seem to be the very first person here who seems to "get it" as to where I'm always coming from abut Allenwrench.

I'm not some friggin witch from hell, but will never back off from the very important point that the more you put into something, the more you'll get out of it.

Allenwrench posts constantly, but never seems to actually learn (or want to learn) anything. Claims to read & research all the time, yet asks questions that even the most basic book or website would answer. Claims to be composting up the wazoo, yet has soil & gardening problems that would benefit tremendously from even a few bags of bought mulch.

His "recommended reading list" to another poster on another thread was half-full of i.d. books re: foraging for wild plants, yet he can't seem to identify even the most basic plants according to his posts here. One wonders if he even owns or has read these books that he's so highly recommending.

I'm sorry if my posts to him sound harsh, but I don't like being taken for a ride by someone who's either not telling the truth, or too lazy to do even some of the work himself.

quote:

Good Lord man, do something - ANYTHING - about that soil. Add some compost, add some mulch, add some water - SOMETHING! This could be virtually any sort of wilt or pest, but what I see is neglect.

Every pic you've posted recently about your failing garden shows rock-hard crusted soil full of crabgrass & poor struggling plants, plus you wondering/whining "wha happened".

You've claimed that you've done an enormous amount of reading on organic gardening. So where's the digested output?

Flame away guys if you want, but I've yet to see Allenwrench absorb any of the terrific advice he's gotten from anyone here. Instead he posts the same basic problems over & over & over ad infinitum.

Oh, & Allenwrench - your cukes aren't "dead", they're just dying for ATTENTION.

Breezy, I think I LOVE you!!!!

And a big smooch to you too Matt .

I just wish more folks here would take Allenwrench more to task than just idly answering his posts that they forgot they answered for virtually the same fruit/vegetable a few days before.

I know that I always end up looking like the bad guy (girl, actually), but you know what? I don't care.

And one more thing. Lord, there could be so much more than one, but I'll just post this one for now.

Allenwrench claims he planted these squash in a former "Blueberry" bed. Just another example of someone who claims to do reading/research but hasn't done a whit.

Yup - blueberries in that sadder than sad, harder than hard soil. No wonder he needs to buy more plants.

And someone ought to tell him that blueberries don't necessarily grow in a "bed". They're shrubs that will live for years & years if provided with proper culture.

But no - he'll be asking those questions to poor misguided OG folks next spring, after doing no research on them himself.

There are no stupid questions.

Just some *******s who answer them.

Yup - that's true. There are no stupid questions. But after awhile, when you realize that the asker isn't digesting even one iota of the answers he's given, or doing even one iota of research himself, then yes, there are definitely just some *******s who continue to answer.