Tree, Is your soil different now than what you had before? And, what sort of soil do you have now?

Do the plants die both in dry periods and in wet periods? In the years I have a lot of rain and the soil stays really wet, I do lose more cucumber plants.

My best guess without knowing anything about your soil is that there is either a pest eating the seedlings right after they sprout or there is a disease in your soil. Cucumbers can be prone to many diseases, some of which are spread by cucumber beetles, which are present almost everywhere almost all the time in Oklahoma once the temperatures are warm enough for them. I usually start seeing cucumber beetles out flying around in March, long before I plant cucumbers....they will eat just about anything but they certainly prefer cucumbers.

The most disease-tolerant variety of pickling cucumber I've ever found is County Fair. I never see the seed of it on seed racks, so I usually order if from Park Seed. Not many seed companies carry it, and I don't know why because it is superb here. Last year I tried Sumter, which I found on the seed racks at either Lowe's or Wal-Mart, and it grew and produced almost as well as County Fair However, last year was only the second year since we moved here in 1999 that we didn't have cucumber beetles, so I don't know if Sumter would have done as well in any other year as it did in 2013.

Make sure you aren't planting the cucumber seeds and seedlings too early. When you plant them before the soil is warm enough, they are very vulnerable to disease.

Also, one way to possibly determine if you have a soil-borne illness going on would be to plant the same variety in a large container filled with a soil-less growing mix. If it lives in the container, but dies in the ground, that would provide some insight into what the problem might be.

Dawn

Last summer I had a pot variety from I think Pinetree then planted in
a huge pot.
A cuke vine grew and a single cuke grew that was very deformed. I ate it anyway cuz that was the first.
The giant field west of me I've never noticed spraying(40 feet away).
The field less than a block away to the south spray all the time(always when the wind blows from the south).
I can't afford test on the dirt.
I grow everything without too much trouble.
mini watermelons,toms,peppers, cantaloupe, squash winter and summer.
I also grow lots of flowers.
Lots I didn't mention.
Tree

My cucumber seed stock:

muncher
straight 8
poinsett 76
tendergreen burpless
spring burpless
national pickling
muncher for pots
Mexican sour gherkin
Armenian 3 seeds
crystal apple
Carolina hy
marketmore 76
cross county hy
sumter
I'm going to try all the above till I get a cucumber
Tree

The last two years I had very good luck with Boston Pickler. Apparently it's an heirloom variety and resistant to scab and tolerant to cucumber mosaic.

It makes great pickles.

thanks osuengineer
Do you have to order them or can I find them in a store?
Tree

I've always found the seeds on the racks at TLC. If you search online, lot's of places sell them.

They don't make real big cucumbers. If they get longer than 7 or 8 inches, the quality begins to go down. However that makes them great for pickles, and they are heavy producers.

Thanks again.
Now that my girls are in there 20's I can pickle and would love to send them more than pickled peppers.
My youngest is having my first grandbaby and I would love to send her pickles.
Tree

Tree,

Congratulations on the impending birth of your first grandbaby! Be sure to let us know when he or she arrives.

Since you grow melons and squash without difficulty, I am baffled by the cucumber problems. Usually if you can grow melons and squash, cukes do just as well in the same soils and same conditions.

I've grown a lot of the ones you have seed for, and generally don't have trouble with them. However, I did have more trouble with all the open-pollinated types than with the hybrids, and you know I prefer to grow heirloom O-Ps when I can. So, I have switched more and more to the hybrids and they have done much better for me than most O-Ps ever did.

I don't necessarily have a big pickle year every year, but in 2013 I canned between 200-300 jars of pickles. At some point, I just quit counting because I was too busy pickling. I know that sounds insane, but we give homemade pickles to everyone so even in a year when I make that many, we usually run out of pickles before the next year's first cucumber harvest. About a month ago, my nephew, who is in his late 20s, asked me to teach him how to make pickles and pickled peppers, so this summer I'm going to give him pickling lessons and recipes. Apparently the pickles I give him for Christmas run out too fast so he wants to learn to make his own. I think that is so cool.

If you want to try County Fair, let me know. I could bring County Fair seeds or small seedlings to you at the Spring Fling. It resists disease and in some years when other cucumber varieties have struggled, it never has. It simply has the best disease tolerance I've ever seen. H-19 Littleleaf is another one that I grew last year that produced really well. I think it is less prone to disease and pest issues because of the small leaves.

Normally if you have a pest like cucumber beetles that is transmitting diseases to cucumber plants, they are hitting melon and squash plants with the same diseases.

I did go through a period several years ago where the melons, squash and cukes all struggled at the same time in mid-summer for three years in a row. It usually was a bacterial or viral disease. I don't know what changed because I still grow a lot of the same melon, cuke and squash varieties, but I don't have that problem anymore. Or, at least, I haven't had it in several years. It might be that the blister beetles were transmitting the diseases. I haven't had a huge problem with blister beetles in recent years. The last time they showed up and were devouring my cucumber plants, I started spraying them with Pyganic every time I saw one and I haven't seen many since that year.

Dawn

When I clean the chicken pen in winter most of it goes along the cucumber trellis to be ready for Spring. I plant cukes in my richest spots.

I just ordered Diva from Parks. I looked for County Fair but couldn't find it at Parks. I kept looking and it seems others like CFair for disease and insect resistance. Only a few places carry it. One person said it had a complicated hybridization and some seed vendors did not the have the true variety. That person was going to switch varieties because he was getting male flowers and thought his seeds were not the real thing.

Some on other forums have trouble with bacterial wilt and other diseases. I guess it is not uncommon to have trouble growing cucumbers due to disease in the soil.

Anyway Parks had free shipping only for today. I thought I might as well order Diva. When I was hunting for County Fair others spoke of Diva as a good one and it was inexpensive.