Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi

Hoping you can help. This is my second year with a Greenhouse and as subscriber to KG, the second led to the first

Last years cucumbers failed and I put it down to inexperience. This year everything went well up until now, the plants look healthy, there are loads of flowers and the fruits are forming, one in the pic is about 70mm long, but now the ends are discolouring and starting to wither..help!

The plants are in a 75l container that is raised and has drainage, they are well fed and watered and face the East, location in central Scotland.

Many thanks

Michael

Hi Michael & welcome

I would hazard a guess that the problem might well be nitrogen deficiency.
The small rotting sample you show and yellowing leaves is totally indicative.

Look at whatever it is you are using as a feed and check its nitrogen value.

Hi Pa Snip & Thank you

Thanks for the quick reply, it's a Tomato feed at 4% and I feed every 4-5 days

Agree with Pa! There is a deficiency, easily rectified. They will probably abort those wee cucumbers so might pay to save them investing any wasted energy into them, and remove them now. You've got flowers, which if pollinated may survive if there is no competition & once rectified more will come & once it warms they will grow fast.

Welcome to the forum Michael!

Westi

Dear Michael,
I would agree that there is some deficiency of nitrogen involved but I also think that as I look at those plants in your photograph you have another problem; which is light deficiency. If that is shading I see over the glass behind those plants I would remove it. If it is twinwall polycarbonate I would clean it inside and out.
Having a shading on a greenhouse in an east facing spot in Scotland and with the weather we have been having of late seems to me to be unnecessary.
Regards Sally Wright.

How often should you feed cucumbers?

Welcome! You do have to remember that Cucumbers are like Sheep, they are constantly on the lookout for a way to die. I agree they look underfed but you are feeding them the same as I feed mine, perhaps a change to Miracle Gro for a couple of weeks will sort them. It looks like a polycarbonate greenhouse to me rather than shading. I have a glass greenhouse double glazed with polycarbonate and I have wondered if pc lets all the wavelengths through plants require, unless anybody knows may take some intense searching.

Hello Michael...welcome from me too.
Frustrating isn't it? My first thought, looking at your photographs, was a magnesium deficiency, which also shows up as yellowing of the leaves between the veins....this is easily remedied by giving a foliar feed of Epsom salts.

My second thought was, how often are you watering them? Is the soil/compost very wet? I say this because of my own mistake regarding this. I used to grow my cucumbers in the greenhouse, in buckets, filled with compost and they needed a lot of water as the plants grew and produced fruits. When I started growing them in the greenhouse border soil, I watered them as I had before but soon found the plants were not thriving. They looked similar to yours and the fruits were withering and dropping off. When one of the three plants gave up the ghost and died, I dug it out and found that the roots were very poor and the soil was very wet. So....I thought, kill or cure. I removed the existing fruits and left the soil to dry out some ...this took longer than I thought! I stopped watering them routinely and started watering them when I thought they needed it...depending on the weather, usually every couple of days or so, feeding them with Tomorite every eight days. The plants began to improve and went on to produce a good crop.
I think I was killing them with kindness by over watering them.
Hope this helps.

Thank You all for the help, I have cleaned & fed with miracle grow, I think I'll step up the feeding and finger crossed, I'll keep you all posted.

Thanks again

Michael