A while ago someone made a comment asking why I was supposed the cucumbers were still going, and asking when the season usually ends. I have a pretty simple answer, but I was thinking about it when I was out doing some clean up. I hope these photos give a better answer.

Before I start, I am a very hands off low effort gardener in general but this year was very difficult personally and the garden is an absolute shit show. Fuck you if you feel the need to make snarky remarks after reading this (or not reading it lmao).

I will also say that this is very specific to my garden. Every garden is a microclimate. I can tell you I am zone 5a (canadian system) and that can mean you can make certain generalizations, but a lady in the subdivision a few clicks away already had frost damage, but we haven’t had that yet.

Frost

This is the one we can’t escape lol. It’s getting down to less than 5 degrees over night now and I’m still getting fruit setting.

If nothing else kills them, the frost will. They are getting less sun and heat so they are slowing down, but they will just keep going.

Microscopic Threats

Powdery mildew is the primary fungal/virus thing I have to contend with. With tomatoes I get blight which fucks up the leaves and the fruit (they are safe to eat if they aren’t showing signs of rot but not to can, they also rot really fast). With these guys is is mostly powdery mildew killing off the plant and generally leaving the fruit alone.

You can treat powdery mildew, but generally when I am taking care of the garden I just remove the infected plants. Here are some photos.

You can prevent the spread by watering at the soil gently to avoid disturbing spores. I haven’t had to water since June lol, so this was pretty avoidable. Removing leaves to improve airflow is another thing I do. No idea if that’s based in facts or vibes but I’m not too particular in the garden.

Insects

The main issue I deal with are insects which damage the plants, causing the vines to die off. Here is a photo of the type of damage caused by insects.

Note the wilted, browning leaves? They also attack the vines themselves. I don’t have any good photos of the vine damage handy because they didn’t establish until very late this year so they have dessicated too many vibes, but you can see them turning a bit yellow here:

I’ve got two main culprits. Squash bugs (on my cucumber, they aren’t that picky I guess?)

And cucumber beetles:

Like I said, I don’t really fuck with the bugs. I got some copper net a while ago for the slugs, it didn’t really work the way I was hoping for, so now I just take what I can get and don’t worry so much.

With this type of damage I just leave the plants alone. Some times the vines will root downstream the damage and survive. Sometimes they won’t. I just leave the hard squash on the vine until they are about to fall off, for best chance of ripening.