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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Cucumbers

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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cucumbers
  • Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:19:37 -0500

On Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:31:15 -0500, you wrote:

>For those growing cukes vertically, are you able to cover the plants with
>fabric to keep the cucumber beetles away until the plants start to flower?
>

We live in a relatively cool-summer area, in the Appalachian Mountains, in
Pennsylvania's Northern Tier.

It seems that a whole lot of insects don't get up into these mountains -
there are no Mexican bean beetles here, for example (knock on wood! I've
grown beans for 8 years here, and I've not seen one single Mexican bean
beetle - although we do have Japanese beetles, but they don't really seem
to like beans, they just nibble a bit now and then.)

We had no 17-year cicadas here either when most of Pennsylvania had them.
And I have never, ever seen a tick here (this has been confirmed by local
friends who have lived here much longer than I have).

Anyway, the point of all this is that I haven't had any cucumber beetles.
In fact, I don't even know what they look like.

Before everyone starts to envy our relatively insect-free status - we have
a serious gardening enemy here: cold. Short frost-free season, cool
nights all summer - down into the 40s routinely in July and August,
sometimes even into the 30s, and there have been very occasional frosts in
July. (I have a terrible struggle with blight on tomatoes.) So you pays
your money and you takes your choice.....

Cheers,
Pat
--
In Pennsylvania's Northern Tier, northeastern USA.
Website: www.meadows.pair.com/articleindex.html

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide
what kind of difference you want to make. - Jane Goodall




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