Grow Your Own Magazine

Hi I wonder if anyone can help. I was given a cucumber plant several weeks ago and it is growing well in my unheated greenhouse. I have had 2 tasty cucumbers from it so far and there are another 8 forming on the plant. The problem is, however, that these new cucumbers after flowering do not develop but turn yellow and wrinkled and I have to remove them. Why is this?
I can't understand why the 1st 2 were perfect and now I have this problem.

I am feeding and watering the plant regularly and have sun shading in place in the greenhouse.

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I had that last year and it turned out that despite the fact I thought I was watering and feeding enough, I wasn't. I ended up watering twice a day and feeding every other watering. Cucs were fine after that.

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If it ain't broke, don't fix it and if you ain't going to eat it, don't kill it

It sounds like maybe they weren't pollonated or it failed to take. Depending on the variety you sometimes need male flowers to pollonate the female ones. If these don't occur at the same time the minature cucumber behind the female flower won't develop and the plant will naturally abort it. This could be it.

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Withering of young fruit (from the tip back) on curcubits is in fact more often due to poor drainage and over rather than under watering. There are other causes though so you'll need to poke around and establish if this is the case and the soil is infact waterlogged. Very quickly root rot sets in ( plant will wilt however much you water) so act now......but draughts/ ventillation/ too much feed etc. can all be a prob. look at the situation again and try and work out where there is a weakness.

Is it in the boarder or a pot? if the latter Norm is probably right and you'll need to water(and feed) REGULARLY ie morning and evening...little and often.

If it is infact a pollination prob.( just turning yellow all over and dropping off) Get a male flower(no fruit) peel back the petals and let those girly flowers have a bit of sex.

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Paul

I had the same problem and decided that I was over watering. I have mine in a pot and cut back on the watering and removed the greenhouse shading to let more light to the plant. I keep an eye on the temp of the greenhouse and give plenty ventilation.I now have a healthy plant with at present four more healthy cucs on it. Hope this is of some use to you.