"FarmerDill" wrote in message
...

I planted cucumber starts in a large container, filled with commercial
potting mix (it might have been Miracle Grow potting soil). This is
outside, in a full sun spot in my back yard. The starts did fine for
about
2 days, then began to wither up and die. They never even tried to climb
up
the cage I provided. Now they are almost dead. The withering started as
the outside of the leaves turned brown, and worked it's way into the rest
of
the plant.

Any ideas what might cause this? I've given up hope on these plants, but
want to prevent this from happening again.

TIA, Shannon
Most likely one of the myriad root rots or damping off . The striped
cucumber
beetle will also do a number on emerging plants, but they usually hand
around
to noticed. The root rots are intensified in cold wet soil, If your
containers
do not have good drainage, ther is a high probabilty of root diseases,

And then there's something that begins with a white dusty-looking deposit on
the leaves, which turns even large, mature plants into nothing, in about 2
weeks. :-(