Problems with Cucumbers :/

[tom5947]

Hi,
So my cucumber plants are now taller than me and I have my first few cucumbers growing bigger, which is great,
However, slowly but surely each leaf (starting from the bottom) is turning yellowy and has holes in it. Once the leaf looks dead, i chop it off, but already the leaf above it has started dying. I'm worried that the leaf death will catch up with the new growth at the top of the plant!





I've attached pictures of the leaves, one pic shows the healthy growth at the top.
Things I do/done :
Water once a day, soil never dry
Sprayed with 'crawling bug' insecticide
They are grown in compost
I feed them once a week

Any help/advice would be great! Thanks

[Potstubsdustbins]

That looks like a little sun scald along with age, older leaves are more susceptible. Are your plants shaded? Do you damp down at all?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Oh and welcome to the vine, others will be along with other suggestions soon.

[tom5947]

Oh and welcome to the vine, others will be along with other suggestions soon.

Thanks for the welcome

My green house is not glass but pale plastic, so they are not in direct sun, but not shaded either,

What's damp down? XD

[Potstubsdustbins]

I to have a polycarbonate twin wall GH but still have to shade the bit were the cumbers are.

Damping down is to pour water on the surrounding area of the floor to add a little moisture to the atmosphere. Don't do it on a hot sunny day as the minute water particles can cause trouble, I find last thing at night works for me.

[tom5947]

I to have a polycarbonate twin wall GH but still have to shade the bit were the cumbers are.

Damping down is to pour water on the surrounding area of the floor to add a little moisture to the atmosphere. Don't do it on a hot sunny day as the minute water particles can cause trouble, I find last thing at night works for me.

Ok yeah, i'll try it from this evening
What do you use for shade? Surely not something completely opaque ?

[Potstubsdustbins]

Yep completely I used to use GH paint, but now I fasten fleece to the south facing windows and tuck my cumbers in the corner.

Cumbers hate direct sunlight, they more for a moist warm climate. In the old days gardeners would have two GH's one for cumbers the other for tomatoes so they could vary the growing conditions. Now many, myself included try to get away with one.

[tom5947]

Yep completely I used to use GH paint, but now I fasten fleece to the south facing windows and tuck my cumbers in the corner.

Cumbers hate direct sunlight, they more for a moist warm climate. In the old days gardeners would have two GH's one for cumbers the other for tomatoes so they could vary the growing conditions. Now many, myself included try to get away with one.

Oh ok, I'll see if I can put up some tarpaulin or something along those lines, i'll have to try and not leave my toms in the dark though!

Thanks v much

[Jay-ell]

You can get cheap netting similar to the tighter stuff onions and potatoes come in to throw over the greenhouse. The idea being that there is more net than hole and this limits the light.

They used it on Beechgrove on the8x6 greenhouse a couple of weeks ago, should be in their fact sheet.

[fishpond]

Do you feed them?
If so, how often and what with?

[Potstubsdustbins]

#8 Tarp would be a be heavy, I think I may not been as clear as I should be, the fleece I am talking about is standard garden fleece we use to protect things from frost. When it has finished that duty I fasten it in the GH to shade the cumbers.

#10 If they are in containers yes they will need feeding, no matter what your growing medium it will be lacking in nutrients after about 6 weeks. Not being organic I use miracle grow, high nitrogen for green growth and then swap to tomorite, high potash for fruit growth when the first small cumbers appear.

[Martin H]

I feed mine with tomato feed at the same time as I feed my tomatoes.

[Philthy]

I feed cucumbers weekly with Chempak no.2 High Nitrogen Feed. But if I'm in the GH watering/feeding other plants such as peppers which need more potash, I tend to top up the cucumber pots from the same watering can.

(Vitax also do a soluble nitrogen feed but recommend it's applied as a foliar spray - which I'd be a little dubious of using on plants under glass. It does wonders for tired looking grass though).

Shade of some sort is a necessity once the weather warms up properly.

[Bren In Pots]

I feed mine with comfrey every week same time as my toms.

[sparrow100]

Thinking it would be good to have it close, I set up a comfrey water butt next to my greenhouse.

Don't do this, it's a bad idea.

Despite the snug fit of the lid the whiff is incredible. And I can't move it, there are 100 litres of water in there with the stinky comfrey.