This is my first time trying to grow cucumbers.
I started two cucumber plants (from seed) indoors about 8 weeks before last frost. They grew great, better than everything else. They were indestructible. When I transfered them to bigger pots at one point, I totally wrecked the root system of one of them, it wilted, it drooped, it shriveled up, I gave it up for dead. A few days later, it perked up and came completely back to life, only ultimately losing its 2 'baby' leaves.
When I 'burned' all my plants with a botched attempt at hardening off, they fared better than everything else. While I lost a full third of my tomatoes and my peppers were set back weeks, the cucumbers just got a wee big singed around the edges and kept on going.
When I finally transplanted them to the garden (near the end of May), they were both great for a week or two -- then one of them mysteriously died. I never did figure out what happened to it.
The other one still seems healthy. BUT... it hasn't grown much. Everything else planted a month ago has settled in and taken off. And this plant is growing, just not the way I expected it to. Instead of it getting taller, or viney, or whatever, there was just a thick cluster of little new-growth-bud-things at its tip for ages (it was, maybe, 6-8" tall), and one big yellow flower. A flower? Already?
Now, some of the bud-things are opening up into leaves, and others into more flowers, but it's all just very tightly clustered in a big bunch at the top of the plant. It's like, it's trying to do all the normal outward growing, but all in the same spot vertically, if that makes sense!
I don't know if this is normal, or if it's stunted, or just weird, or what. I don't know if I should be picking off the flowers or just letting it grow or what. I'm utterly clueless! Any help would be vastly appreciated.
I started two cucumber plants (from seed) indoors about 8 weeks before last frost. They grew great, better than everything else. They were indestructible. When I transfered them to bigger pots at one point, I totally wrecked the root system of one of them, it wilted, it drooped, it shriveled up, I gave it up for dead. A few days later, it perked up and came completely back to life, only ultimately losing its 2 'baby' leaves.
When I 'burned' all my plants with a botched attempt at hardening off, they fared better than everything else. While I lost a full third of my tomatoes and my peppers were set back weeks, the cucumbers just got a wee big singed around the edges and kept on going.
When I finally transplanted them to the garden (near the end of May), they were both great for a week or two -- then one of them mysteriously died. I never did figure out what happened to it.
The other one still seems healthy. BUT... it hasn't grown much. Everything else planted a month ago has settled in and taken off. And this plant is growing, just not the way I expected it to. Instead of it getting taller, or viney, or whatever, there was just a thick cluster of little new-growth-bud-things at its tip for ages (it was, maybe, 6-8" tall), and one big yellow flower. A flower? Already?
Now, some of the bud-things are opening up into leaves, and others into more flowers, but it's all just very tightly clustered in a big bunch at the top of the plant. It's like, it's trying to do all the normal outward growing, but all in the same spot vertically, if that makes sense!
I don't know if this is normal, or if it's stunted, or just weird, or what. I don't know if I should be picking off the flowers or just letting it grow or what. I'm utterly clueless! Any help would be vastly appreciated.
