Any of you guys still have cucumber plants from this spring still alive? Mine are still alive and doing well. I don't think I've ever had any live this long. Usually some sort of disease or insects have killed them. I have noticed that the cucumbers aren't as good now as they were. The seeds are maturing faster than they were earlier in the year. I planted a later planting so they'd kick in when the first ones died, but now I ended up just having twice as many cukes. The production has really slowed on both sets of plants over the past week, but we're still getting plenty to eat. Since this was my first year with raised beds I wasn't sure what to expect. Even though the boxes are where my garden has always been, disease problems on tomatoes and other things have been almost non existent. Squash vine borers still killed all my squash and zucchini, so nothing new there.

Just got rid of my old vines for the reason you mentioned but the new ones are doing great.

I think they done for here I didn't plant any but I picked what I believe to be the last of my grandads yesterday

After church I just went out and picked about 40 huge cucumbers off the vines. Maybe that will get them producing good again. The "new" has worn off them so I'm not eating as many as I was a month ago and I had let way too many get big. I'm sure those were sucking all the nutrients out of the plants. They're still covered in blooms, so maybe after pulling all those and pruning the runners off the vines that aren't climbing on the cattle panel arch, they'll be better like they were a month to 6 weeks ago.

Mine were still blooming looking yellowish to green but no cucumbers. Still seeing bees around. Don’t know what to do. Pulling them up this week.

Lost my first planting to powdery mildew, but not before I got a bunch. Planted a second crop and they are just beginning to produce. Noticed the first one I pulled was bitter. Cucumbers are bitter due to cucurbitacins. Cucurbitacins are normally found in the leaves, stems, and roots of cucumber plants. The cucurbitacins spread from the vegetative parts of the plant into the cucumber fruit when plants are under stress. After that bitter one, I fed them well and mulched around them with some cotton burr mulch. We will see what happens. I am the antithesis of you Fur, never had so many issues with cucumbers as I have this year.

Wow, interesting Ms Maggie. What variety do you plant? I've been planting various burpless varieties for years, because they have less cucurbitacin in them. The variety I've been planting for the last four years is Summer Dance. They are fantastic and I've never had one that was bitter. I grew up being force fed Straight 8 cukes. Those things are always bitter.

You mentioned something on another thread that piqued my interest. You said you never had luck growing broccoli in the fall. Why is that exactly? I have great luck with it in the fall, but never have luck with it in the spring.

Mine are still putting on small cucumbers. I'll give them a week or two to straighten out. If they don't, over the fence they go.

I’ve been planting Tasty Green for the past five or six years and they are some of the sweetest and best tasting cucumbers we’ve ever eaten. They are a Ferry-Morse seed. I’m only planting two hills at a time in a raised bed and give cucumbers to three of my neighbors.

Thanks I’ll give em a week or so cause we enjoy them.

If I recall correctly, these cucumbers were Boston Pickleing. I am going to try another variety next go around, called smr-58. Don’t think I have ever seen the variety you mentioned. Where do you find them?

As to the broccoli, the heck if I know. I may try a few plants this year. You have encouraged me.

I order the seed. I've ordered them from multiple different places and Burpee seems to be one of the best. For a slicing cucumber, I have yet to try a better one. I have no real secrets to give on the broccoli because I've never had any problems with it. I just transplant on Labor Day weekend, keep it sprayed with Bt, and fertilize the snot out of it. It's a very heavy N feeder.