Monthly Archives: August 2011

Cucumbers are not difficult to grow in a backyard garden, although there can be one serious problem. Cucumber plants tend to pick up one disease that can cause serious damage to your garden. You may have even experienced to seen this disease first hand. You start planting your seeds and they have started to grow perfectly and have even developed stretching vines that have expanded out around the garden and formed a lush cucumber patch. You are excited to have a full harvest of cucumbers this year that will bring to you fresh salads and possibly dill pickles. However, one day when you are pruning in your garden you realize that a cucumber plant appears to be dying. Your immediate thought is that it could be your son or maybe the cat that has been running around the garden and possibly they snapped the stem off at the base of the plant. You bend over closer to the ground to see what happened. Everything seems to be normal. Then you try giving the plant some more water, but realize that the surrounding plants are not wilted and appear fine. To your surprise you discover a few tiny striped and spotted insects floating nearby, specifically around the flowers of the plant. Then it comes to you. The tiny insects are cucumber beetles! Those monsters have infected your plants with a devastating disease called cucumber wilt. Continue reading