My cucumbers have wilted

kimmee

Hi All

I planted out my outdoor variety cucumbers today into their final position which are two largeish planters with trellis up the back. Previous to this I'd germinated them indoors, then transplanted them into individual pots and about 2 weeks ago I started hardening them off in my little Wilko greenhouse and for the last week the greenhouse 'door' has been left rolled up at night.

After planting them up today I gave them a good water but one of them has just wilted and I checked on it a little while ago and it's really wilted and looking totally sorry for itself.

Does anyone know what I could have done wrong? I suppose it could just be 'sulking' but I love cucumber and really hope it's not terminal :eek:

Any advice very welcome, thanks

RuthMarianna

check that a slug has not bitten its neck, main stem that is cos it happened to one of my cougettes right after it was planted out.

katholicos

My cuc's died when i planted them in their containers, but though i couldn;t swear to it, i think it was overwatering as they just went so limp and then collapsed within a couple of hours of my putting them in their final growing positions.

The pots they came from were quite wet and then i watered them in. I think it was over kill. it is now.

bertiebots

My first lot did the same. I grew them on the windowsill and they looked really good until the day I decided to plant them out. They wilted before I had chance to move them and where dead within 24 hours of putting outside! I put some seeds next to the little pale wilted plants thinking they would have no real chance but 3 or 4 have germinated a week later so (although I dont want to get too exited yet) they look pretty good! Maybe its worth just trying some outside?

peter_the_piper

I grow lots of cues and for some unknown reason this has been a bad year for die off. Normally I would accept 10% but this year it seems a lot more. The main reason given is planting too soon in an unheated greenhouse in cold soil. F1 cues are a bit fragile anyway so I would expect to lose some especially if they were pricked out too late. I usually !!!!! them out on the 6th or 7th day after sowing, any later and the percentage of failures increases, possibly they hate root disturbance.

kimmee

Thanks to all for your replies - very much appreciated

I reckon it could be overwatering like kathalicos, the pots were quite wet, then I transplanted them and watered them again - so maybe overkill

However I've just been outside to have a look at them and I think (she says, keeping fingers well and truly x'd) they look like they've perked up a bit Knowing my luck I'll come home from work today and it will be funeral time :rotfl:

ANY_CHANCE

This is interesting i have 4 young cucumber plants in a pot im not sure what to do with them now!
Should i leave them in the pot? or transplant them without splitting them up? or split them up and put them in the ground?

Kimmee i hope your are ok when you get home

cooking-mama

The exact same thing happened to mine ..it was an F1 plant that i had bought from garden center,it had grown way too big for the windowsill so i repotted it into a Morrisons bucket and within hours it had totaly wilted .
I still have one on my windowsill grown from seed(marketmore),its a decent height and is growing "tendrils"...im now worried about repotting this, the others from the same batch of seed in the plastic growhouse seem to be very odd shaped and growing in all directions but these have flowered,and one has what looks like the start of a tiny cucmber.

Orange_King

I have about half a dozen cucumber plants in the greenhouse and they seem very fragile - I have them on a stake to give them some support and it looks as if they are about to start producing the tendrils.

Do they need planted outdoors eventually or will they do ok in their pots?

kimmee

Well, just got home and although it's not quite funeral time they are looking worse than this morning and I can only think that it might be because it's been absolutely bucketing down from about 11am and is still raining - which really makes me think they are just too wet. The weather forecast is for lots of sunshine for the next few days so I'm hoping that will perk them up.

This is interesting i have 4 young cucumber plants in a pot im not sure what to do with them now!
Should i leave them in the pot? or transplant them without splitting them up? or split them up and put them in the ground?

Kimmee i hope your are ok when you get home

Thanks for the good wishes ANYCHANCE - I think they need quite a bit of room to grow so I don't think the pot you have grown them in would be big enough, how big is it? And are they outside cucs or indoor ones?

The exact same thing happened to mine ..it was an F1 plant that i had bought from garden center,it had grown way too big for the windowsill so i repotted it into a Morrisons bucket and within hours it had totaly wilted .
I still have one on my windowsill grown from seed(marketmore),its a decent height and is growing "tendrils"...im now worried about repotting this, the others from the same batch of seed in the plastic growhouse seem to be very odd shaped and growing in all directions but these have flowered,and one has what looks like the start of a tiny cucmber.

Thats fantastic cooking-mama, mine are also growing any which way and have a few tendrils.

I have about half a dozen cucumber plants in the greenhouse and they seem very fragile - I have them on a stake to give them some support and it looks as if they are about to start producing the tendrils.

Do they need planted outdoors eventually or will they do ok in their pots?

It depends on whether they are specifically indoor or outdoor cucs I think. I wanted to grow mine outdoors so I looked for seeds that were an outdoor variety, I have to say before all this mine didn't seem at all fragile - they were really sturdy plants. They definitely need staking or supporting but I think you need to find out if your variety are outdoor cos I think most cucs do better indoors.

Thanks again for you replies

foxgloves

If they are still alive but just looking sorry for themselves, try giving them some seaweed solution. We use Maxicrop. It's around five quid a bottle but you use it very dilute & it lasts for ages. It can be very good at helping wilty plants through difficult times like when they haven't taken well to being transplanted. I once grew some french beans that got so damaged by gales then slugs, that I actually had to sellotape some of the stems. I tried them on seaweed solution & couldn't believe it when they rallied & we still got a good crop!