24,795 Garden Web Discussions | Vegetable Gardening

Not enough info Carolyn, sorry. Variety name? Container or in ground? Direct seeded or transplants? Time of the year planted? What nutrients? etc. Need to know much more about the growing conditions you provide.
"Leaves and stems turn white" doesn't ring a bell except that many varieties of zucchini normally have a silvery pattern to their leaves like this one does . But not the stems.
Then there is a disease called powdery mildew that can turn the leaves white and can kill the plants if it isn't treated but it doesn't stunted the zucchini themselves, only lack of pollination does that.
A photo and many more details would be helpful.
Dave

That's an important point about male and female flowers. Squash and cukes will start out producing only the former, because they are easier for the plant to make, and they'll attract pollinators to the bed. Once that attraction is done, the plants start spitting out females as well. If you have both, but no fruit, you might try some hand pollination. You may not have insect pollinators around. Hand pollination is a little laborious with the small cuke flowers, but should be really easy to do with the squash.
Now, some cuke hybrids are gynoecious, in that males don't happen on the plant. Seed packages of such cukes usually have dye-marked monoecious seeds that offer those males. I think those gynoecious hybrids are supposed to be able to fruit by themselves (producing seedless fruit), but I'm not aware that it really works that well.
I'd be careful about fertilizing. There is no "magic sauce" for fruiting, unless the soil is recognizably deficient in something. If this is your first year gardening, you'd do well to get a soil test, or see what your neighbors got when they did it. If you had a potassium deficiency, you'd probably see leaf-cupping on older leaves and leaf scorching. Such deficiency is more common in acid soils. Too much potassium will encourage foliage development, like for nitrogen excess.

Some fruit bearing depends on temperature, and there's nothing we can do about that. Be patient. Like a previous poster said, the first squash flowers are usually male. Female flowers will show up later. My cucumber is producing like crazy, but the early season flowers just fell off.

Dave gave excellent advice above, and I don't need to repeat it. But I want to call attention to the phrase "soil is poor". There are MANY ways soil can be poorly suited to vegetable gardening, and many of those are ways that fertilizer simply doesn't fix. Your soil can be clay or, as I think you say about yours, sandy. That is, it may drain poorly or too well. That's fixed by adding organic matter like compost. Lots of it. It may be poisoned with something like salt, if you're on a coastal plain. That's harder to fix, but there are plants that will tolerate it to some extent. Your "poor" soil may well not be deficient in any chemical nutrients, and if you can't point to specific symptoms of nutrient deficiency in plants, the only way to tell is with a lab analysis.
BTW, bottom yellowing leaves on tomatoes can also be just early blight, which is very manageable, and unrelated to soil nutrients. It could be related to daily watering.

I do an early set of broccoli, cabbages and cauliflower that went in earlier and next week or two I will put out second (main crop) of those. As days get shorter and temps cooler crops will take longer to mature. Carrots will go out too and spinach a little later. I'm in zone 7 (NJ). I've found waiting until august is to late but I get milder weather because I'm close to the coast.

Germination will be reduced at higher temperatures but especially with lettuce. You are better off germinating in a cooler environment like a basement or garage and transplanting.
If you plan on growing lettuce in heat pay particular attention attention to heat tolerant varieties. Performance varies in many ways, the most serious is probably tip burn but some varieties bolt quickly in hot weather, others just wilt at higher temps.


Wow congrats Charlie. Mine were planted out something like the first week in April and are showing no signs of sending up a pod. I hope it wasn't an entire bust. They got tons of cold weather in April so if they weren't vernalized I would not want to try it again. Plus they have been bug magnets and I have lost many leaves. But I knew they were an experiment, really I just wanted to do them because of how early I got to start. I am glad you were successful! :)


There are three possibilities you might want to research (other than the common soil dwelling pests that is) and compare the symptoms described to your plants. Bacterial Wilt, Fusarium Wilt, and Verticillium Wilt. This last one is slim possibility as it begins with the top of the plant but it can be easily diagnosed by cutting open the stem lengthwise and looking for the brown streaks in the pith.
B. Wilt is the most likely if you have had all the excess rain like much of the rest of the country so that the soil is constantly wet. F. Wilt is normally associated with cucumber beetle transmission.
Dave

I would second Elisa's advice, re: use of a soap spray. Provided that they are completely covered, both adults & nymphs are very susceptible, and perish within a minute or two. There are several formulations that can be used, but I recommend the use of a mild soap, such as baby shampoo, or Safers insecticidal soap. I add rubbing alcohol to my mix, it paralyzes insects briefly, to allow the soap to work. This even seems to kill the eggs.
The nymphs tend to cluster together, so you can wipe out large numbers quickly. But if you know there are squash bugs in your area, the best solution is to watch for & kill the first adults, then search under leaves for any egg masses. The first adults often can be found close to the ground, near the stem, or under leaves which touch the ground. I've noticed that cucumber beetles can be an early indicator, they tend to swarm on plants that are already weakened by adult squash bugs.
Unless you use Safers in your spray, it is best to hose off the plants after the bugs are dead, to avoid damage to foliage.
Oh, and the soap/alcohol spray is also a good way of killing ants & wasps in the home... and it wipes clean. ;-) I use it to kill paper wasps when they build nests in dangerous locations... spray the nest at night, when all of the adults will be present on the nest.
A high-volume spray bottle is best for applying soap spray, such as those sold in farm & fleet stores ("horse sprayers").


I was thinking of planting kelp! Yup I watch the weather everyday! Sometimes I check it a couple times a day if storms are spotty. The last couple of Junes for us have been very wet. The vegetables are really struggling this year. The flowers and the perennials are hanging tough!


Farmington- The "one inch per week" "rule" is a very vague guideline at best. To put it another way, it's completely unreliable. How much you need to water depends on the specific crop, rainfall, heat, your type of soil, sun exposure, if your soil is mulched or not, etc. Nobody can say definitively that your plants need x-amount of water. Sorry, I realize that doesn't help much.
Water until your soil is moist. Not just on the surface but deep down. Certain plants like consistent moisture. Some like to dry out a bit between waterings. If it's been hot, you'll need to water more. If it's been cool you might not need to water for a while. Sandy soil dries out quicker than clay. Mulched soil retains moisture whereas unmulched dries out quick in summer. You just have to get a feel for it.
Rodney

When my old soaker hoses spring a leak it's super glue to the rescue with a bit of duct tape on top. These are the black flexible oozing/soaker hoses that are made from recycled ground up tires, which lately have been in the news for causing cancer when used with artificial turf on soccer fields (tire dust inhaled and on exposed skin). I'm slowly switching over to old fashion sprinkler systems.






Mark your calendar for Sunday, June 28, 2015 from 12:30 p.m. until 5:00 p.m
If you live in CT it is worth the trip.
The new website is here http://www.bethelgardenfair.org/
They have an all new and very impressive "Demonstration Garden" you can get some ideas from. More info at the website.
The fair is today.... don't be late.