Cucumbers in SE Louisiana

[fluffy_gumbo]

I just can't seem to grow cucumbers here, this is my second summer and I had worked out the tomato growing but not the cucumbers.
Last year I tried the variety Muncher and this year Beit Alpha. I planted seeds by the trellis when the weather is about 65-70F and they just take off REALLY slowly. After they started climbing they seem develop bacterial wilt. The trellis is not in full sun but gets a pretty good amount. The pole beans I grow next to them does great.

Does anyone have any advice? I really want some garden cukes :

[GoDawgs]

You might want to wait until the soil is a bit warmer for direct seeding. The alternative is to start them in small pots (I use 3x3x4") and transplant out. It is said that the cuke family members don't transplant well but a little trick received from some one has worked just fine. When the plants have their first true leaves full out, it's time to transplant before the roots get too big. Use the pot to make an indentation in the soil that's an exact replica of the pot. Then remove the plant from the pot and slip it into the pot shaped hole. They'll never know what hit 'em! It's worked very well for me with cukes. Haven't tried summer squash yet.

One other thing is to keep trying different varieties until you find one that does well for you. If you have a feed & seed store near you, see what cuke seed they have as those places usually sell what grows best in the area.

You'll get there!

[wxcrawler]

If, and it's a big if, you can get rid of the cucumber beetles, you may be able to get rid of the bacterial wilt. It's a constant battle in my garden. I planted German Chamomile by my cukes this year, and the cucumber beetles aren't as bad. But there are still some around.

Lee

[pepperhead212]

Bacterial wilt is a problem I have had with just about every variety of cucumber I have tried. For years, all I grew was County Fair, which was the only one in catalogs listed as resistant to bacterial wilt. A while back another one - Little Leaf - was listed as resistant, but I didn't have good results with its production, so I stayed with CF. This year, I tried another that was not listed as resistant to BW, but to the cucumber beetles that spread the disease - Wisconsin 58, and it is producing incredibly well, and seems to be producing now, during this heat wave, while the CF has sort of stopped - something you may find useful!

I have had an incredible number of cucumbers from just 2 of those plants! I just picked 6 yesterday, and just now, I picked 4 more, when I went out to take pictures. They are sort of an "indeterminate" type, with all different sizes on them at once, while the county fair are more "determinate", getting a bunch the same size growing, until I pick them all, then it starts up again, at least in my experience.

I can't tell you why some simply take forever to start growing! I had one CF eaten when small, so I direct seeded that bucket, and it's taken forever, but finally is taking off.
Cucumbers, on trellis, about 7 feet above buckets. 7-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Flowers on the Wisconsin 58, in extreme heat, 7-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I picked 6 of those yesterday, and 4 more today!
4 more Wisconsin 58s. 7-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[Ginger2778]

20200408_075258.jpg

Try Taurus F1. Bulletproof! These are from 3 plants, and one morning. Some mornings I got as many as 9. And we really cant use much more than 2 in a day.

[ponyexpress]

Have you tried any Asian cucumbers such as Suyo Long? My friend has been growing them for the last two years (NH) and they're prolific. He had so many cukes that he didn't know what to do with them.

This year I'm growing Suyo Long and a few other varieties. So far, they're all doing well with no sign of wilt. I'll report again at the end of summer.

[pepperhead212]

[mention]ponyexpress[/mention] I've tried several Asians, and all got bacterial wilt, often before I'd get a single cuke! Do you normally have problem with BW?

[mention]Ginger2778[/mention] Do you ever have a problem with BW on other varieties? If so, and Taurus is resistant, that looks like something I might try, and obviously, it has to be heat proof!

[karstopography]

https://www.superseeds.com/products/bur ... id-60-days

Try Garden Sweet Burpless. Worked well along the Coast here in Texas. Direct seeded in Early March. Productive May into July. I pulled them out about a week ago. Tasty, not bitter. I didn’t spray anything beyond NEEM oil.

Going to try another few for a fall crop. Probably seed mine in a week or two.

They are a Japanese hybrid type

[Ginger2778]

@ponyexpress I've tried several Asians, and all got bacterial wilt, often before I'd get a single cuke! Do you normally have problem with BW?

@Ginger2778 Do you ever have a problem with BW on other varieties? If so, and Taurus is resistant, that looks like something I might try, and obviously, it has to be heat proof!

I haven't ever had bacterial wilt. i do get aphid problems, but no beetles. but I grew Beit Alphas, they weren't good performers at all.

[zendog]

Bacterial wilt from the beetles breaks my heart every year. I plant cukes (Diva, County Fair, Little Leaf, Bush Pickles and some others) and the beetles give them wilt before they've produced more than a few cucumbers. The ones in my area don't seem to have gotten the message that they're not supposed to like some varieties. This year is a bit of an exception in that I do have some bush pickles growing at my community garden plot where most other people have lost their cukes, but mine are still going. The only difference is I had mulched my raised beds pretty heavily with wood chips and I'm just letting the vines sprawl on the ground instead of up a trellis. It helps that bush pickles doesn't get too big. I have no idea whether this is a stay of execution, just luck, the fact they're growing on the ground or maybe the wood chips, but I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Diva, County Fair and National Pickling plants in the garden at my house have all wilted, most without even giving me a single cuke.

I think the only ways to reliably grow them when the beetles are present and that population is carrying wilt is to grow the cukes under some type of row cover or to heavy use of insecticides which I prefer not to do. But I will have to give Wisconsin -58s a try.

[pepperhead212]

Something that I do now, that I didn't used to do, is I spray all of my cucumber plants with the totally safe Surround, from the beginning! Same thing with okra (for aphids) eggplants (for flea beetles), squash (doesn't work for SVB, but works for other bugs), tomatoes (mainly aphids, but some others), and early on peppers and cherry tomatoes (too much of a pain to wipe off small things!). I watch for new growth, and hit those weekly, sometimes more often, and the dedicated sprayer stays ready with it (not something that decomposes). Maybe this keeps those cucumber beetles off of them? I also add some potassium bicarbonate as a fungicide, but supposedly, nothing helps with bacterial wilt.

It sounds like I would go through 50 lbs of this a year, but I got a 25 lb bag back in the beginning of 2016 (only remember that because I wrote it on the bag!), and a few weeks ago I emptied the end of it, filling a 4 gal bucket I keep it in to the top. So it's actually lasted a long time, though next season I'll have to get more.

[fluffy_gumbo]

Wow! It's reassuring to see that I wasn't the only one with cucumber problems, maybe there is hope after all. And also that Beit Alpha didn't do well for others.

I have Pointsett 76 coming in the mail and they're supposed to be resistant to a whole slew of things, though not bacterial wilt, but it's a variety that is recommended by LSU Ag. But I will keep an eye out for the Wisconsin 58 if this also doesn't work out. Good thing seeds are cheap!

[mention]pepperhead212[/mention] i saw you mentioned Surround in another post and looked it up. How much roughly do you use per square foot? My plots are small, two 8x8, so I don't want to get too much if I decide to try.

[pepperhead212]

[mention]fluffy_gumbo[/mention] I'm not really sure how much per sq foot I use - I fix up a 2 gal mix, with 3-4 c surround, and that pretty much covers everything in mine, with about half a gallon left, and that's a lot of things to spray! Today, it was pretty much just hitting new growth areas, so I only used about 3/4 of gallon, and even that was more than I really needed for all of the okra, squash, cucumbers, gourds, and larger tomatoes.

One good thing about Surround is that it doesn't wash or blow off easily, unlike DE. A while back we had just under an inch rain, and it didn't seem to lighten the cover much. The 4.73" rain we had washed a lot off, but some was still there! That was the only time I had to spray everything down again, but the undersides of the leaves - the most important for many, was still pretty well coated.

The first couple of times I bought this I got 5 lb bags, from one of those places with 50% off deals, but even that couldn't bring it down close to the price per pound of the 25 lb bag from groworganic.com And their shipping wasn't ridiculously high.
https://www.groworganic.com/products/su ... b4da&_ss=r

[ponyexpress]

@ponyexpress I've tried several Asians, and all got bacterial wilt, often before I'd get a single cuke! Do you normally have problem with BW?

I personally don't have a lot of experience growing cukes. My friend has. I'll have to ask him about his experience with BW. For years, he would grow the traditional slicing cucumbers and tried Suyo Long a couple of years ago. It has been his best producer ever for several years.

Two years ago I grew cukes in a few grow bags. They were eaten by the groundhog or deer. Last year they didn't do well because they were crowded/shaded by other vegetables. This year, I'm giving them more space and doing a better job of training them to a fence. They all look good, asians and traditionals.

[pepperhead212]

I'm glad that they are doing well for you, [mention]ponyexpress[/mention], and I hope that you never have a problem with bacterial wilt. Unlike other diseases, it is very fast - they can look fine one evening, then the next morning, every single leaf is wilted, like the plant had been cut off at the base. Not a pretty sight.

[jillian]

I highly recommend Cross Country, it doesn't succumb to wilt or powdery mildew, at least for me. And it is PROLIFIC!
Check out description at Fedco seeds. I tried Suyo Long one year but it didn't do well for me. I will grow Cross Country every year. It's still going strong, I can't keep up with them. I have 6 plants growing on a cattle panel fence with pole beans.

[pepperhead212]

Cross Country is one that I grew years ago, but it succumbed to bacterial wilt. Later, when I saw what was listed as its resistances, BW was not one of them. I should have looked first!