Cucumber seedlings yelow, wilt and die?

[themadprofessor]

I have just started a vegetable garden behind my shed in my garden. The plot is against the west fence and to the north of my shed. It gets sunshine from sunrise until midday.

I have planted out cucumber, courgette and butternut squash seedlings that I obtained fron a local grower. They had been hardened off in her garden. My soil is (I think) sandy over clay probably a metre down. I dug over the vegetable patch and dug in 4 bags of farmyard manure in an area of about 20' x 20'.

I planted four baby cucumber seedlings close to the fence, so they possibly get a little less sunshine but the first and second replacement seedlings have just turned yellow, wilted and died within three weeks. All bar one of the cucumber seedlings have also wilted and died. I have also got some butternut squash plants that do not seem to be doing well in my opinion as their leaves are yellowy. I have also got 4 tomoato plants and 40 onion sets that seem to be flourishing in the same patch.

I have watered daily and I added a liquid feed to the water last week.

I don't know whether one can post photos here - but I have some of the dead cucumber plants and also of the butternut squash.

Thanks for any assistance, Chris

[miffy]

Hi I am not an expert by any means but do you think you could have overwatered them?
It could have been also that it was still alittle too cold for them when you planted them out three weeks ago as it was stil pretty cold at night.
Hopefully one of the more experienced folk on here will help you as i am very new to this lark also.

[gojiberry]

Were they outdoor cucumber? Cucumbers are very prone to rotting and really need to be cosseted. If you have any more to go out put a 2lt pop bottle over each one (with the bottom cut off and minus the screw cap) That will give them a bit of protection and added warmth. Definitely cut down on watering, if they are in partial shade then you should not need to water them at all, unless the weather gets really dry.

Ian

[themadprofessor]

I forgot to say I am located north of Peterborough on the edges of the fens. There were two leylandii (25 ft high) that I cut down and removed the stump and most roots before I turned this area into a vegetable patch. Could there be substances left in the soild after these having been growing there for 20 years or so.?

Chris

[miffy]

Conifers are acidic plants could it be the soil is too acid for them?

[emilymup]

Sorry to say but I too had the same problem with my cucumbers! Since I have watered them considerably less they have turned green again and are growing at the rate of notts! I was treating them like the tomatoes but I think my particular varieties like to be drier!

Good luck!

[peter67]

I to have had the same problems, I used fresh compost for my greenhouse bed.

[solway cropper]

Cucumber seedlings have a built-in suicide tendency and are very prone to tantrums if things are not exactly to their liking. For the first time in many years I'm not growing cues this year because every single sowing from early March to the end of April has resulted in disaster. Not done anything different so I put it down to the funny weather.

I can just imagine the little bu**ers sitting on the windowsill and saying: it's not sunny enough, I think I'll die.

[flowertot]

Yeah I had suicidal cucumbers this year, however.......I've persevered and have a last chance batch germinated and at the point of a true leaf (or two). I did buy new seeds and went for Marketmore cos I noticed one or two of the more experienced growers were growing them. I will having read this thread go easy on the watering I think.

[dominic10]

My first batch of cucumbers are now ex-cucumbers but this was my fault because I put them outside on a sunny day and forgot them. They were out overnight when it turned very cold just before the heatwave. Apparently they didn't forgive me. The next batch seem OK at the moment

[Florence Fennel]

Having had little success over the years with cucumber, I've decided not to grow it this year. I am, however, trying gherkins. We'll see.