"Jim Carlock" writes:
The silverleaf whiteflies cause damage by secreting some
bad stuff into the leaves which makes veins in the leaf turn
silvery, then the whole leaf eventually pales and gets a silver
glowish look to it, but the plant continues to live and grow.
I'm only guessing that it makes the whole plant weaker.

You know, some of the curcubits have the silver veins in their leaves,
zuchinnis do, so perhaps your variety of cucumbers does too. I tend to
the view that your cucumbers are dying from mildew, more so in light of
your admission that you regularly water the leaves.

The new yamato cucumbers I have growing have some
really big leaves growing, and I am seeing holes in the big
leaves but there are no flies or visible bugs at the moment
that I am seeing. Yes the older leaves are getting holes,
and there are some beautiful new leaves growing every
day.

You say you are a beginning vege gardener. Do you know of the bacteria
spray (BT) that you can use to destroy caterpillers (of species that will
turn into moths)?

I did try a yellow plastic coffee can lid and I put some
vegetable oil in it over the summer. The cuke vines grew

You need to hang a large yellow object up, shake the plants to get
the flies airborne, and they then land on the attractive yellow and
get stuck.

Just one more question about cucumbers. I noticed you
mentioned that cucumbers will stop fruiting. So how long
are cucumbers expected to live? I keep hoping they can
live more than 2 or 3 months but perhaps I'm dreaming.

My Mum grew cucumbers. Like most curcubits here, their life here ends
prematurely when they succumb to leaf mildew. But 2 months sounds a
good duration for cucumbers to be bearing. I used to hand pollinate them.
The flowers are so small that bees would overlook them in favour of the
bigger zucchini blooms. There is nothing worse then watching your
cucumbers flowering madly, and none of them setting. Pick a male flower,
strip it of the petals, and rub its pollen into the female flowers.
--
John Savage (news address invalid; keep news replies in newsgroup)