Use Floating Row Covers to Grow Better Cucumbers Without Spraying
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Article by: Terry Cunning Cucumbers are easy to grow , Decorate Your House With Specialty Trees in a home , The Magic Plant Copier garden except for one problem. They are especially susceptible to one disease. , Easy Pond and Water Garden Construction Perhaps you've seen it in your own garden. , Attracting Birds To Your You have planted a row of seeds , Orchid Care - What The Root Tells Us and they have sprouted nicely and have grown into long vines that have spread out over the garden , The Many Faces of a Fence and turned themselves into a big cucumber patch. You are beginning to anticipate having a bountiful harvest of cucumbers for salads , For The Most Luxurious Dining Outdoors: Ready Or Not, Outdoor Kitchens Are Here! and maybe even pickles. But then one evening when you are walking through the garden , Bamboo Plant Information and Care you notice that one cucumber plant , Watering Your Garden - How to Make Each Drop Count has wilted. Your first thought is that maybe one of the kids, or maybe even the dog, might have been running through the garden , ing with Garden Decor and maybe they broke the plant , Easy Pond and Water Garden Construction off at the base of the stem. So you get down on your knees and check things out. Nope. The stem is intact. Then you think that maybe the plant , Coneflower or Echinacea - the Best Thing in Your Bed needs water, , The Garden Beckons but if that is so then why aren't all the other cucumber plants , Volumetric Concrete Mixer surrounding it wilted too? Then you notice a few little striped or spotted bugs flying around, especially near the blossoms of the plant, , New Uses For Old s and then you realize what has happened. All those little bugs are cucumber beetles. They have infected your cucumber plants , Patio Furniture - Coordinating Cushions, Chairs, And Canopies with a disease , The Many Faces of a Fence called cucumber wilt. What can you do to control it? Cucumber wilt is a bacterial disease , Volumetric Concrete Mixer that is carried by the cucumber beetle. If you find an infected plant , Flower Gifts in your garden , Folklore: It Starts with the Soil the best thing to do is just to pull it out of the ground and burn it. At this stage, after one plant , Orchid Care - What The Root Tells Us has wilted, the cucumber beetles have no doubt had a chance to spread through all the other plants , Wicker Patio Furniture or Teak Patio Furniture Look Awesome With Patio Chair Cushions in your garden. , Planting for Wildlife If you have a really healthy garden , Attracting Birds To Your you might still be safe , Garden Folklore: It Starts with the Soil because many of your plants , Creative Ideas For Beautiful Garden Art could be strong enough to resist the disease , For The Most Luxurious Dining Outdoors: Ready Or Not, Outdoor Kitchens Are Here! and still produce a crop. If this seems to be the case, then the easiest thing to do is just to do nothing. But if your garden , Transplanting Deciduous Shrubs is the least bit stressed or out of balance and you can see cucumber beetles zooming around everywhere then the wilt will probably spread and kill almost all the cucumber plants. , Know Your Bird Feeders; Part 2 The next thing you can do is to try to kill as many of the cucumber beetles as possible. Insecticides containing rotenone or pyrethrins are probably the easiest and safest solution and they do work, but it will still be a continuing battle to save , Using Annuals in Your Perrenial Garden the rest of your plants , The Basics of Growth; (Part 2) Plant Energy long enough to get a harvest. Planning ahead and use floating row covers. There is a simple way to raise cucumbers without having to worry about cucumber beetles and cucumber wilt. Just put a barrier over your plants , How to Plan and Successfully Grow Your Tulip Garden so that the beetles will never have a chance to touch them. The easiest way to do this is to use floating row covers. Floating row covers are big sheets of spun-bonded polypropylene fabric that are light , Making Memories with Flower Gardening enough and thin enough to lay over the plants. , How to Grow Blueberries Enough light , Orchid Care - What The Root Tells Us and rain can pass through the fabric so the cucumber plants , Backyard Landscaping can grow , Coneflower or Echinacea - the Best Thing in Your Bed until they are ready to blossom without ever being molested by a cucumber beetle or by being sprayed with and insecticide. When the blossoms appear, just remove the cover so that pollination can take place. , Decorate Your House With Specialty Trees If there are any cucumber beetles around when you remove the cover it will probably take them some time to find the plants , Bamboo Information and Care and then some more time to do any real damage. By then you will be picking cucumbers. Tips for using floating row covers. You should put the row covers on the same day you plant , The Many Faces of a Fence your cucumber seeds. , Volumetric Concrete Mixer Don't let the seeds , Hydrangea Forever & Ever Red sprout uncovered because the beetles might find the tiny seedlings then and all will be lost. You should also place , Rose Gardening: Water, Sun and Shade the covers so that they have room , Garden Folklore: It Starts with the Soil to puff up after the plants , Making Memories with Flower Gardening start to grow , Coneflower or Echinacea - the Best Thing in Your Bed under them. Don't put them on tight. Make sure to seal the edges completely with dirt all the way around. This is the only way. Don't use rocks or garden , Easy Pond and Water Construction staples because these things still leave openings where a bug can crawl through. Copyright 2006, Terry CunningTerry Cunning is a gardener from Pennsylvania. For more information , Worm Composting Bin about organic gardening , Wicker Patio Furniture or Teak Patio Furniture Look Awesome With Patio Chair Cushions please visit his website at http://www.gardening.organiccavalcade.com/ |
  
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