small cucumbers turned yellow http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img537/2604/223Te1.jpg
My baby cucumbers turned yellow and fell off. I have 2 cucumber plants that produced 8 cucumbers each, however, the other flowers with small cucumbers turned yellow and fell off.
What causes that problem? How can I solve it?
Pollination is probably the issue - the cucumber is formed behind a female flower, but if the flower does not get pollinated, then it yellows, shrivels and drops off. You haven't said whether you're growing under glass (less likely to be pollinated by insects) or not, but you can hand pollinate - take a small paintbrush, grasp the male flower (the ones without the tiny cucumber behind them), gently swirl the brush around in the centre of the flower, till you can see yellow pollen on it, then transfer that to the female, using the same procedure.
Surely, it's lack of pollination. For the two years past, I had to hand pollinate my squash plants. This year, however, I see bees on the flowers, and I'm getting lots of squash. I live in Renton, Washington, and I don't see many bad bugs.
I see that many of you recommend insecticides, which I never use. For one thing, insecticides are not specific to bad bugs. They'll kill all the insects, including the pollinators, which are really susceptible to poisons (as am I!).
