Oh. ok. Much like the climate I'm in. was hoping you'd have let it go and see if any of the suggested remedies helped. Can always learn by failing. Good luck with the new ones. For what it's worth, SWC's sound great on paper(especially her in SoCal), but they sound like everything needs to be prefect to be effective. If I was to try one, I wouldn't use anything but the famed 5-1-1 mix discussed so frequently in the container forum. I would think that root rot might be a problem and the 5-1-1 is designed to eliminate that problem as much as possible. Healthy roots, healthy plant... in most cases. Kevin

Well, that doesn't sound too encouraging. Actually, this past summer, it zapped my two little canteloupe vines as well, and Michigan State University also found it on various squash and pumpkins, although not as heavy as on cucumbers and melons. Anyone interested can just google "downy mildew" and "Michigan State University" and a whole number of pages come up -- they did a good job documenting the appearance and spread of this disease here. Interestingly, I sprayed my squash and pumpkins at the same time I sprayed my cucumbers, and they didn't get anything, downy mildew or otherwise, until the summer squash came down with a bad case of powdery mildew in September. By then, I was so sick of summer squash I didn't care anyway! I was hoping that some variety would be resistant, as some of the catalogs indicate this, but I wasn't aware that this was a new strain of the disease. Oh well, I guess I'll have to get the recommended fungicides and really spray -- every three days, all summer long.

Any variety will develop the diseases if the conditions are right. They are only resistant, not immune to them. So it would be more productive to explore the options of preventing the disease in your particular garden. They all thrive in cool, damp, shaded, and poorly ventilated areas so things like avoiding over-head watering, increasing sun exposure substantially (try containers that can be moved for example), thinning surrounding vegetation to increase air circulation and sun exposure, covering plants during periods of heavy rain, trellising, close monitoring and early detection, succession plantings, etc. can all help. That said, Cool Breeze is touted as being very resistant. It's quality as a pickle is debatable but acceptable. Eureka is another and makes better pickles IMO. But I also have great results with good old National Pickling. The disease issue may develop depending on my weather but with staggered plantings of multiple hills which you have to do anyway to have enough to make a batch of pickles at one time, I still have cukes coming out my ears. Dave

I concur with Jimster's sound advice. Floating row covers, laid over the ground immediately after planting, will give the plants a fighting chance. If Spring rainfall is frequent, prop the cover up with wire hoops to keep it from touching the foliage. Remove the cover when the plants begin to bloom, at which time you can erect the trellis & train the vines to it. When you remove the cover, watch for the first signs of cucumber beetles, and attack them aggressively. They usually group together in numbers, so I have had good luck killing them with a spray bottle at that time, using a soap/oil/sugar solution. I sometimes get a little leaf burn with this solution, but the area sprayed is quite small... nice of the little buggers to bunch together for me. ;-) I have had excellent results with an open-pollinated slicer, "WI 5207", which I have reported about on other threads. It is highly disease resistant, as good as most hybrids. I only lose a couple plants each year, vice 50% or more for other varieties. A New England gardener with whom I traded last year reported great results. WI 5207 cucumbers, on a trellis last summer As you can see, it is a fairly strong climber. It is also parthenocarpic, meaning it will set cukes without bees. These cukes will be completely seedless. Theoretically, this means you could grow it completely covered all summer... but I haven't tried it. If allowed to pollinate openly, they will set seed, but still less than most large slicers. The flavor is really special, completely bitter-free. I'd be happy to send you seed for a SASE... contact me via my member page if interested.