On Feb 7, 5:20 am, "Anne58" wrote:
I live in zone 7 (I think) - west coast of Canada (Vancouver
specifically) and I have been having an awful time getting cucumbers
to grow.

Each year I get the sturdy little plants from the local garden shop,
make sure they are properly hardened off and growing well then plant
them into the garden. Once in the garden they grow very poorly and
seem to have an awful time on sunny days.
Days that are mainly sunny the plants wilt really badly even when the
soil is moist and don't recover until well into the evening. I've
tried planting them in a shadier spot but then I have to deal with
mildew on the leaves.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm sure that the market gardeners in our
area grow cukes in the full sun without any problem so what is the
matter with mine?

Looks like you have bacterial wilt. I have it too. I grow a very early
variety, which
starts pumping out cukes in late june. By late july the plants have
gotten the wilt
pretty bad and I remove them. If you cut a vine you should see a
stringy, gooey sap.

Spraying the plants with rotenone delays the onset of wilt (which is
transmitted by
beetles), but in the end they die. I don't mind, because I like cukes
best at the
beginning of the season, when the body is adapting to the warm
temperatures, and
cukes (with a bit of rice vinegar) are just right for that time of
year. By the time
they keel over, there are chard, zucchini, string beans, and some
tomatoes ready, so
at that point it is easy to forget about the cukes. My variety is a
hybrid named
Country Fair, which I warmly recommend for taste and earliness (even
though it is
a pickling cuke).