I am happy for you! I had one hide on me last yr(first garden). It was laying horizontally a few inches off the ground and got about 16" long. Not knowing how many zukes I'd get I had about 10 or so plants and got almost 100 zukes. Neighbors got lots. Took some down to our laundry mat several times along with my extra cukes (got 225) and left them on the counter with a sign that said plz take! I shredded them for breads, muffins and brownies. Sliced them for stir fry and pizza. Filled a shelf in the freezer. Lesson learned: Pick them when smaller, don't plant them as close (I had to pull some up) and I wont be planting as many this yr!

You just let it get away from you. Cucumbers are used when very immature. All of them are yellow or orange when ripe. From the size and color I would expect that it is a Straight Eight. The pickling cukes usually are orange. Never had a burpless get away from me, so I don't know thier ripe color.

rhizo - You are right about info on the web but plenty of good info on squash bugs is on the web and plenty of references about how they do not vector disease and about their life cycle. Also note that they are often mistaken for stink bugs, which can and do vector diseases. DAMAGE Squash bugs have piercing-sucking mouthparts that they use to suck the sap out of leaves. Their feeding causes yellow spots that eventually turn brown (fig. 6). The feeding also disrupts the flow of water and nutrients, which can cause wilting. However, unlike cucumber beetles, squash bugs do not vector diseases. Young plants are much more susceptible to damage and may die from extensive feeding. Larger, more vigorous plants are more tolerant of feeding damage, although they can also be injured or killed if they severely attacked. University of Minnesota Extension ------------------ Observation also plays a part. The majority of plant damage is done by the extremely large number of nymphs and their 5 stages of life that hatch from 1 pair of adults. The adults themselves are are in the last stages of their life cycle when they emerge from the mulch and debris in the spring. They feed but minimally so and even young plants can tolerate the feeding done by the average of 6-8 adults found on a plant. They then lay eggs and die. What the plants, until well established, canNOT tolerate is the thousands of young that hatch from the eggs those few adults lay unless one treats for them. This is not to say that you can't have more than the average number of adults on your plants, especially if you don't treat for them for several years and allow for a severe infestation to develop. But it is all the nymphs that will do in the plants. Dave

Thanks, jaynine, and yes, that is one sad little plant. It's had something chomping on the leaves, and I keep hoping it will grow faster than the chompers can chomp. This is an aquaponic system, so I don't want to introduce anything to kill the chompers that will affect the fish. Thanks for your plant id's- guess il just have to wait and see what's yellow and what's green.