Learning Curve

Gardening is not a task for someone afraid of learning. You can't simply put plants in the ground and say "Good Luck!". Plants need help along the way and figuring out just how to help them is where the learning part comes in. It's not like plants can come along and say "Hey, I need some nitrogen here!" or "A little more water please". But, they do have ways of alerting you to a problem. My cucumbers are doing just that. I know I don't have the best soil and I also know that I haven't done a whole lot to really improve the soil aside from adding some gardening mix. What I don't know is exactly how to improve the soil for what I'm growing with little to no expense. Granted, I've read a lot of different things that would probably solve my problems, but they all require shelling out a chunk of cash that I just don't have right now.

So back to the cucumbers. Until last week they were looking great. Big green leaves, lots of cukes starting to grow, sturdy vines crawling across the ground. Then we got a couple of days of almost non-stop rain. I thought, "Great! My ground was really needing a good soaking!" Within a day or so though, I noticed all the cucumber leaves, especially those closest to the root, starting to turn splotchy yellow and then very quickly to brown. What in the world?? I thought they needed the water? My first thought was that maybe the hard rain was bruising the leaves, but that didn't make sense. Plant cells have rigid cell walls that are specifically there as a barrier to the elements. Then it was that maybe they just got too much water. But as the yellowing seemed to get worse and spread further down the vine I figured it was neither of those problems. I checked the plants thoroughly for bugs but couldn't find any in the leaves or on the stems that might be causing a problem. Off to the Internet I go to find out what's wrong.

The best thing I can find is that there is a lack of nitrogen in the soil. Our soil here has a fair amount of clay and, like I said, I didn't do a whole lot to supplement it. I did till in a topsoil mix when I was preparing the plot and I planted each seedling with garden soil. I also got a plant food for vegetables that I added in with the initial planting. Everything looked so good for quite awhile! UGH!! I guess for now I'll try a plant food with a higher percentage of nitrogen and clip out the leaves that are dead or dying so they aren't trying to pull in any resources. I still have several very nice cucumbers growing, so the plants aren't completely dead. I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope they can pull through this. If not, well, lesson learned for next year and I'm really going to miss my fresh cucumber and tomato sandwiches.