As far as I've heard, your stomach acid does a pretty good job on lots of things. Stuff that is bad for you (listeria, e.coli, etc) doesn't come from nowhere, it comes from contamination with feces, human typically. And direct sunshine can do a good job killing some of those, as well. If you have an immune disorder, then be more careful. Otherwise, I'm sure that cucumber is cleaner than anything you pick off the grocery store shelf that has been handled by several people, at least.

Little green worm isn't much help, but here's some info Here is a link that might be useful: Cuke pests

Justine, healthy plants makes it easier for the plant to shrug off and overcome pests and disease. Baby tomato plants can't shrug it off so easy, and some pests just like to go for the good stuff ... i.e. the new leaf growth or blooms. No blooms means no fruit. As your property becomes more organic, you can have more and more beneficial insects come in. However, your close neighbors can have a negative impact on that. As you noted, I think you are right that your passion vine death was from herbicide. Your pole beans, what type/variety? Has the temperature really dropped enough down south for your variety? The little green worm is the larvae stage of some moth. I'm not sure which. Control is (1) picking (2) spray - BT & Spinosad (3) sticky traps. Hopefully Silvia will come along and help me out, because I don't know all that much. Here is what I do, I tour my garden every morning, starting with the baby tomatoes. I'm looking for curled up leaves and sticky stuff sticking leaves and stems together. Sometimes you can see frass (poo-poo) around, and sometimes you can barely see little bitty strands of web stuff gluing the leaf curl. Ideally, I just pick off everything sticky. If the plant is too small, I carefully open up the leaves and stuck together stuff and try to rub off the bad stuff. As the morning progress and the sweat starts rolling on my glasses my ability to see closeup deteriorates. This is when I just start picking. Anything I pick gets taken to the pavement and squished. PS - Nice blog! Hope this wall'o'text helps you. Lessons on Picassa another day. That is where your blogger photos are stored. If you can make your way into Picassa we can probably show you how to get your photos on here. ~dianne

Agree. The root cause can be tricky. Just wondering - looking at the leaf which deficiency is it symptomic of? Is this a Potassium deficiency? The yellowing areas between the veins are starting to exhibit the same burnt color as the edges (copper brown color) and its moving up. I'm finding a lab to do the soil test for me but wondering what i can do in the meantime. I've tried to do multiple soil tests with 2 kits and they come back saying the PH is highly alkaline. Could it be this high soil PH thats locking out nutrients? The soil is a combination of 1/3 compost blend (vermicompost, home made compost and neem cake), 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 peat moss. Wondering what to do in the interim until i can get the soil tested to prevent the cucumber from dying. Looks like its on that path anyway so i'd rather do something than nothing. All the best,