The first cucumber plant I grew was a couple of Yamato
types. They never fruited. They flowered quite a bit.

The second cucumber plants I tried out, were put in
a shadier area and I did get one cucumber off it.

However, it is having a second fruity due going on and
I now have two cukes on it. Not far away is another
cuke seed I planted at a later hiscadoo date. It also
initiated with one fruit. I'm hoping that it'll take off
bare some more fruits.

I've been chopping up a bunch of leaves and breaking
up a bunch of small dead branches and feeding the
sand (and cucumbers) and that seems to be helping.

I saw my first snail out here sucking on some dead
leaves (possibly corn stalks I chopped up). I seen
plenty of ladybugs scooting around and wasps flying
about. There aren't too many bees though. Everything
seems to be getting ready for the winter. Throughout
September there were quite a few ladybugs. I caught
a few doing the mating dance every so often. They are
only slightly bashful about it. Wish my camera could
do some good closeup shots of small bugs.

Thanks for the help with the potassium and such. I
wonder how many times the cukes will blossom and
bare fruit?

I've read that mulching up bananas does a good job
of putting potassium and nitrogen into the soil. And
from what I see by the fact that banana peels turn black
(oxidize). I image it puts some oxygen and carbon
into the soil as well. Anyone ever studied the oxidation
of banana peels?

The following link indicates that tea leaves are best when
non-oxidized (ie, green leaves/green tea vs. black leaves/
black tea). They mention oxidation of a banana peel in
a comparison to oxidation of tea leaves.

http://www.teasofgreen.com/oxidation.asp

I'm reading that a banana peel inside a jar surrounded
by petroleum jelly is used to catch roaches. That a
banana peel can be taped over a wart to get rid of a
wart. Somewhere a few days ago, I read that banana
peels are great for roses, and I can personally confirm
that.

And while I can't be too sure about the banana peel
and the cucumbers because I didn't isolate the incident
from other things... I stuck a bunch of other dead
decomposing leaves on top of the soil where the cuke
is planted, as well as a bunch of sphagnum peat. The
peat didn't seem to upset anything too much (create an
intolerable acidity). Coffee grounds though, seem to
upset the balance of cucumbers. The coffee grounds
probably need to be mixed with other things for a
beneficial result (coffee grounds are acidic?).

There seem to be a thousand and one uses for
banana peels... Charlie Chaplin thought so in describing
a comical use for a banana peel:

Show a goofy man walking. Show a banana peel.
Present them both together displaying the man
stepping over the peel. Then have the man fall
into an open manhole cover on the other side of
the peel.

--
Jim Carlock
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