Cucumbers Are Yellow Even When Very Young

8 years ago

You're not going to like this disastrous looking photo, but the problem is that these pickling cucumbers I got from Walmart were slow to start growing, but they were making little cucumbers and more flowers. I gave them a light sprinkling of 13-13-13 and after seeing no change, I gave the area a stronger-than-prescribed dose of Miracle Grow. This has really helped the leaves, but ever since cucumbers started sprouting, they've been yellow, but the photo in the tag had big, beautiful green cucumbers. I did take a yellow cucumber and cut it open. It's nice and juicy on the inside and it tastes fine, but it really bothers me that they're not green. The leaves are big and green however, on most of the vines.

Keep in mind that I REALLY need to weed this flower bed, but I tend to have a hard time squatting and standing a lot without feeling like I'm going to pass out.

I don't know why, but this image has posted upside down. The one on the bottom right is rotting. I'm about to go out and pluck it off the vine. Those other plants are radishes mixed in with the cucumbers. Some dill weed is growing out there, too. I just threw all these dill and radish seeds out to be companions to the cucumbers. Radishes are not developing either. The leaves are, but the radishes themselves are just little skinny red roots with no roundness at all. They do smell like radishes though!

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Comments (4)

digdirt2
8 years ago
I don't see anything in the pic that looks like a standard cucumber, sorry. Much less that looks like a pickling cuke. Maybe you got a mislabled plant and it is one of the Lemon Cucumber plants instead as they are normally roundish and yellow. Otherwise the only guess I can make is they are left on the vine wwaaay past picking time.

The radishes won't tolerate all that nitrogen fertilizer. They are not nitrogen users for the most part and prefer it not be anywhere in the neighborhood. All it does is is produce leaves with no radish roots.

Dave
Phanes thanked digdirt2
Phanes
Original Author
8 years ago
I wouldn't be surprised if the cucumbers were mislabeled. I once picked up a 4-pack of jalapeno peppers from Walmart and they turned out to be banana peppers. I'm coming to the conclusion that Walmart is not the place to buy plants, even if it's only because some sneaky customer is switching tags to annoy gardeners.

Also, I noticed that there were some cucumbers that were a darker yellow --- and rotting, having fallen off the vine. Maybe some of these are lemon cucumbers; I have heard of those. But if that's the case, then perhaps I got a mixed four-pack because these are the ones I just picked today. I cut one of them open and showed it to my elderly neighbor and she says the one I cut open is ripe and ready to pickle. I'm just kind of concerned about whether it's safe to eat if it didn't get all the nutrients it needed. The green one is naturally more like what I'm looking for, and I think it developed after I doused the area in Miracle Grow.

Ugh... I had to save this photo upside down on my PC to make it post right side up here. I don't know what's going on.
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digdirt2
8 years ago
Sorry but all of those have been left on the vine way too long no matter what variety they are. You can tell by the size of the seed cavity, the size of the seeds and the skin colors. Even the green one which is rapidly turning yellowish. Plus they have been getting inconsistent soil moisture as you can tell from the shape of the green one.

Have you been having very heavy rains or are you watering daily or something?

Pickling cukes should be about the size of the bottom 1/3 of the green one and instead the swollen shapes would seem to indicate far too much water as well as that they are very old.

Dave
Phanes
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
We did get a whole lot of rain earlier in the season (I live in East Texas and while we had no major flooding right where we are, there was flooding in nearby areas -- perhaps you remember seeing some of it on the news a while back), and now we're really not getting any rain and it's been in the mid to upper 90s. If I don't water every other day, the soil becomes as dry as a bone and the leaves start wilting.

And as I mentioned above, these yellow cucumbers turned yellow VERY quickly after they moved past the tiny green finger sticking out of the vine. They were already yellow when they were the size of a golf ball.

Cucumbers Are Yellow Even When Very Young

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Cucumbers Are Yellow Even When Very Young

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