Quote:
Originally Posted by enchant
A few days ago, we got about a day and a half of steady rain. Inches of rain. So I figured I wouldn't have to worry about watering for a while. I have a soil moisture meter, and taking a couple readings in the garden, the soil is still pretty moist. But my cukes look awful.
I plant them on mounds, and when I check the moisture at the top of a mound, it's bone dry until I get down about 4-6 inches where it's moist again. Is this why my cukes are dying? Does the water quickly drain out of the mounds? Do I need to hand water those mounds every day, even though most of the garden has plenty of moisture?
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Worth asked where the idea came from about growing in mounds and how big your plants were now. So first I'll answer Worth and long ago and far away seed quality was not what it is now and cukes and squash were grown in hills, which is what they are really called, to get the seeds off the cold soil where they didn't germinate well at all.
And still today one sees directions saying to grow in hills. Well I remember a neighbor lady, a new gardener who lived near our farmhouse when I moved back East in 1982 showing me her garden and I kid you not, she had planted cukes and squash in HILLS that tapered and were at least two feet high. What could I say, well plenty, but I didn't.
So, how old are your cuke plants now? have they started to vine? If just short vines I'd get them off the hills and into the level soil ASAP. When I grew cukes I'd start them in 4 inch pots, sow 4 seeds around the inner periphery and one in the middle. When it came to transplanting them I'd leave the three best plants in the pot, remove the other two, knock out the 3 and plant them as a clump and then cover the row with fabric cloth so that no striped or spotted cuke beetles could get to them, but when they started to blossom, take off the cover so pollination could occur.
And doing it that way even if the beetles got to them I could get a good set of fruits that would mature before the plants went down with the wilts.
Carolyn