Today's post is about Cucumbers.
My friend Anne had an animal eat her cucumber plant the other day so it was toast. Pests do really enjoy cucumber plants because they are succulent when little. As the plants get older they get little spikes on the stalks so not so yummy to animals but they become food to other bugs and pests. Mine are just starting to get big enough. Cucumbers are from the same family of plants that squash, pumpkins, watermelon, zucchini all come from. They normally need more sun and like it hot but not too much. Squash bugs run rampant in these plants. A trick my mom showed me with these bugs is that you can see them easily and pick them easily. Grab a bucket of water with dish soap in it. I usually do an ice cream pail size. With gloves on, I pick the bugs off the plants and put them into the bucket of soapy water. This instantly kills them. Try to keep up with this and go out every other day or so. If you stay ahead of them they won't kill off the plants. My mom lives on a farm and has the super big garden and usually the squash bugs win because she has too many plants to keep up with. If the bugs show up in one cucumber plant odds are they are in the others of the same family too (ie squash, pumpkins, zucchini, watermelon). So watch them all. Later in the season they will just go away because it gets cooler.
Adult squash bug
Eggs are on the underside of the leaves (I squish these as its harder to pick these off)
babies just hatched (easier to be squished too)
Don't they look gross?
I know it seems like alot to do this but it takes just 10-15 min or so to check a plant so that you can save it from these pests. You can also use insecticides but if you are like me and you are trying to do no chemicals in the garden to make it as organic as possible...you will want to not use those chemicals.
Every year I have this issue. I haven't seen any blogs that know the trick to getting rid of them ongoing. If you figure it out let me know.
Happy Gardening!
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