Sweet success problems

[Jaysan]

I love these cukes. They grow and produce great at first and of course taste great but....

Then they just fizzle out. The tiny cukes about 6 to 8 feet from the base just turn brown and black and die and that is it for production. The vines keep growing fine but no cucumbers.....

They are 5 to an 18 gallon container, are watered 15 minutes a day with a drip system using shrubbler emiters, are fertilized with foliage pro half strength once a week.

Any ideas as to what is going on???

[Cole_Robbie]

Mine did the same thing. I'm guessing it was blight. Next year I will spray Daconil as a preventative and see if they do better.

[Jaysan]

I was thinking the same. The last vines I grew I started with Daconil early but still has some issues. I trimmed the bad leaves off early and the vines kept growing and looking ok but still no cukes. Bummer.

Also, and maybe this is a hint to someone that knows, some the cukes grew weird, big on the ends and skinny in the middle, sort of similar to an hourglass with elongated ends.

Still tasted great though.

[gssgarden]

Same here! I wondered if cukes should last all season. I planted some others a month agao and have picked 2 so far. Seems to be my patern. They just don't want to grow all season.

Greg

[Cole_Robbie]

My grandma said that she always had to plant cukes at least twice over a summer. I think they are just prone to blight and fungal disease. One of the things I noticed is that when my plants got hit with too strong of a wind, the leaf damage seemed to turn into blight.

It's supposed to be irregular moisture that causes the funny looking cukes. My containers were 5 gallon buckets, and I put the drainage holes about three inches up the side from the bottom. That creates a water reservoir, and it is less likely to go completely dry. My other plants that were in normal nursery pots had the funny-looking cukes, but the ones with the water reservoir did not.

[Jaysan]

Might be it. I saw where a fellow member grew these in a self watering container and his were growing and producing really good. He also had plastic mulch covering his soil so that could have helped moisture loss also.

[dpurdy]

Jaysan,
I've been growing sweet success cukes for about 3 years now and haven't really encountered any of these problems. I'm just planting my second crop of the cucumbers today. I have harvested cucumbers since the 1st of June and they are now starting to peter out. I use drip irrigation and have plastic mulch covering my rows. Maybe that's the secret to growing these. In the picture posted you can still see that I'm still harvesting them every day. The only thing I would change would be my planting date. They were producing fruit way before my tomatoes were coming in. I've been able to harvest cucumbers from these plants for almost 2 months. I sprayed my cucumber plants with Greencure about a month ago and had no problems with powdery mildew or any other issues. They definitely like to be watered regular and fertilized. This is what I harvested this morning.