Cucumbers

[Tressle2]

I got quite a few cucumbers but ive noticed that there are a few baby ones that are dying what am i doing wromg

[Penellype]

Are they an all-female variety or an outdoor type? If they are not all-female some of the flowers may not have been pollinated.

All-female varieties sometimes have small cucumbers that die off in amongst the ones that develop - I think this is probably the plant's way of dealing with stress, possibly if it is to hot.

[fon]

Its usual,

As soon as they start to show signs of yellowing and flimsiness chop them off, as the plant will grow more quicker.

Some plants are all female, and some male and female. A male cucumber has no lump (the bit that turns into the cucumber) behind the yellow flower.

When you have both male and female flowers, the males need to pollinate the females. In nature its done by bees and the wind, in the greenhouse a nice brush up against them as your passing, or even a fine paint brush being mixed between the flowers will help. If the female doesn't get pollinated it will die off.

Fon

[bramble]

Cucumbers. I had 4 plants.
While I was on holidays they turned into triffids.
They were wrapped around the chilli trying to strangle them.
Today I decided to try sorting them out.
Discovered they were infected with green fly.
As space is at a premium in the greenhouse and we have a hosepipe ban I decided to cut my losses for this year.
Sadly, they are now in the compost bin.

[ESBkevin]

Not doing so well with Cucumbers this year. Two in the greenhose looking a bit sad but are producing fruit. Two outside strung up next to my Tomatoes have got knocked right back by the sunny weather despite regular watering. I think I might lose them and for the first time get better results from the greenhouse crop!

[Earthgirl Jen]

Hi Tressle2 and welcome

I'm no cucumber growing expert by any means but what happened to me was after I first potted mine from a 2lit pot to a 20lit pot I watered it too well and as a result I had one cucumber and the next 3 went yellow and rotted on the stalk. I have a cheap wilkos moisture meter which made me realise that to begin with they only needed watering every 3 or 4 days, which gave the roots of the cue time to grow, they need a moist not saturated soil in order to grow more roots.

So many points of view and different ways of growing on this lovely forum and I'm just adding my own experience to the mix .

By the way this year I'm growing the cheapest lidl F1 cue seed, so all female flowers and they are lovely.

[goosander]

Growing Marketmore in and out side the greenhouse. Now growing like weeds and do not know what to do with all of them. The yellow apple like ones are the same.
The tomatoes are only just starting to turn red which is 3 weeks later than the last couple of years.
Bob.

[HoneyChild]

By the way this year I'm growing the cheapest lidl F1 cue seed, so all female flowers and they are lovely.

Hi EJ, were they Restina or Konsa? I bought them this year as I automatically assumed that F1 meant F1 female (the Telepathy I've grown for the last few years from Wilkos just said F1 and they are all female).

Unfortunately the Restina produced male flowers so I've had to evict them from the greenhouse as I don't want them to pollinate the female plants I have.

However so far the 1 Konsa plant I have doesn't appear to have produced any males but it's been really neglected sitting in a 2 litre pot without so much as a bamboo cane to keep it upright. Despite that it's producing 1 cucumber which looks OK.

Meanwhile the Restina plants are sitting in 2 litre pots on my backdoor steps attempting to produce mini cucumbers despite the terrible neglect they're suffering from.

[Penellype]

F1 does not necessarily mean all female. There are 2 distinct types of cucumbers and you need to find out which sort you are buying so that you know whether they need pollinating or not. It should say on the seed packet - my philosophy would be if it doesn't tell me essential information like that I will look elsewhere.