Welcome to the forum! Are the leaves yellowing or are they still green and healthy? Have you seen any bugs or tiny spots on the leaves? How often and how much do you water? My plants were just recently exhibiting the same problems as yours. Then I remembered that cukes LOVE water. So I've started watering them 2-3 times more water and they are putting on cukes like crazy and growing even better than they were before!!

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Sarah - Zone 5b/6

I'm watering once a day, sometimes with a hose and sometimes with a cup from a bucket, usually in the morning. I'm trying not to get the leaves wet, and the plant is growing on a trellis, so it's not laying on the ground. We're using the square foot gardening method, so it's in a raised bed and we're using Mel's perfect mix of soil from his newest square foot gardening book (by Mel Bartholomew). The recipe is as follows: 1/3 blended compost (we bought 5 different kinds of compost, including manure), 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.

I haven't been fertilizing.

As far as I can see, the plant itself is healthy. Therre are a few yellowed leaves down low. I've seen what look like yellow ladybugs on it, and when I reached out to try to pick one off, it flew like a ladybug. They had black spots and were yellow.

Any ideas?

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Katica

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Originally posted by Katica:
so it's in a raised bed and we're using Mel's perfect mix of soil from his newest square foot gardening book (by Mel Bartholomew). The recipe is as follows: 1/3 blended compost (we bought 5 different kinds of compost, including manure), 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 coarse vermiculite.

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First off, I LOVE MEL BARTHOLOMEW and Square Foot Gardening, I really like his info and knowledge...

I am only wondering for cucumbers it maybe a bit tooooo rich for them.
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quote:

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Originally posted by Katica:
I've seen what look like yellow ladybugs on it, and when I reached out to try to pick one off, it flew like a ladybug. They had black spots and were yellow.

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Those are CUCUMBER BEETLES
They spread disease... and they are hard to get rid of, *well, organically* they multipy like the dickens...

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Weezie

Don't forget to be kind to strangers. For some who have
done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
- Bible - Hebrews 13:2





http://photobucket.com/albums/y250/weezie13/

Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a yellow ladybug?
I had only one bug that I thought was a yellow ladybug-now I'm wondering if it was a cucumber beetle such as shown here.
I had recently let go a tub of ladybugs I bought at the garden center, so I thought it was a ladybug that had gotten alot of sun.
Don't laugh-I really did think that.
The strange thing is, I'm not growing any cucumbers or melons or squashes, just one tomato.
No neighbors are growing any either.

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But wouldn't they not get fruits at all if they were not being pollinated? These have little cucumbers. Sounds like it's time for a pesticide like Pyola.

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Originally posted by Tamara from Minnesota:
But wouldn't they not get fruits at all if they were not being pollinated? These have little cucumbers.

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The female flowers will always start out with the tiny fruits. If they do get pollinated they will grow. If not they will shrivel up and fall off. It definitely sounds like a lack of pollination, but like any other curcurbit plant you can manually pollinate the female flowers yourself.

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John - Zone 6

I too am experiencing the same problems with my English cucumbers and my zucchini. How do you manually pollinate? My zucchini has a lot of small zucchinis on each plant however, they are turning yellow and shriveling up when they are about 3 inches long. All other squash is doing fine. Thanks!