I'm looking for some advice here. This is the first year we grew cucumbers. We had some success early, but over the last week or so, several have turned yellow, with a couple being streaked with the normal green. I also have a few healthy looking green o es still on the vine.
Are the yellow ones a lost cause, or is a chance they still ripen properly on or off the vine? Or should I just cut my losses with them and trim those and the dead leaves and hope for the best at the end of the season. A second round of warm weather is not uncommon here, so it may not be a total loss. Any advice is appreciated.
Editing to add:
Thanks for all the help.
We did pick some green ones a few weeks ago and saw some more budding out. Unfortunately, we never saw these at the green stage. Between work and bad weather, there were too many days that I just couldn't get out there to check. I was hoping these were still in the early stage, but it sounds like they're past.
I did cut them off, and I'll check to how they are. Maybe yellow cucumbers are the next hit item.
Also, I have some more green on there and buds, so we may still get a second good harvest.
by 1EyedWonderWeezl
10 Comments
The yellow ones are ones that should have been picked a while ago. Go ahead and pick them now. They may still be tasty, they may not be. Essentially, your plant is trying to create seeds at this point and the yellow cukes are the ones where it think it succeeded. I would pick everything in this picture except maybe the small very green one at the top of the frame
yellow means they have over-ripened…and when this happens the plant thinks it’s don’t it job producing viable seed and shuts down.
harvest the green cukes
Once you allow the cukes to go yellow, the plant has been indicated its job is over. The best way to deal with cukes is to succession plant. This plant is old and they simply don’t last the entire season. A second round would just be hitting its prime if you timed it well.
Pretty great production for a first try. Well done!
You should think of vegetables in your garden as belonging to at least two main use categories. Some vegetables, like tomatoes and peppers, are mainly used when ripe. They might be picked just as they are beginning to ripen (breaker stage with tomatoes, corking stage with jalapenos, or green stage with bell peppers), but these vegetables either have a lot less flavor when unripe or they just aren’t palatable. Sometimes there are alternative preparation methods, like frying green tomatoes, but for the most part, we wait until these veggies are ripe to pick them.
However, there are actually a lot of vegetables that we harvest and use before they are *biologically* ripe. If we let them go too long on the plant, we say they are over-ripe, but as far as the plant is concerned, “over-ripe” is the biological goal of the plant: producing a fruit that contains viable seeds. It’s actually tricky as a gardener because the main way we have to gauge readyness-to-pick with these sorts of plants is size, but environmental factors can cause some fruits to ripen early, so you have to learn some of the signs to look for as well. With zucchini, eggplants and cucumbers, we actually pick them *way before they are fully (biologically) ripe* for reasons such as flavor, texture and amount (and size/hardness) of seeds. Another reason to pick young fruits is to keep the plant producing. Letting fruits get fully ripened can cause the plant to commit so many resources to the fruit that the plant itself won’t produce fruits anymore, and in some cases, it becomes so unhealthy that it eventually dies after doing its job.
Why have you let them go this long?
Good advice from folks on the yellow cucumbers. As to the deceased leaves, remove them all immediately. Remove new leaves as they begin to show signs of disease (brown spots, burt looking spots etc). Assuming it’s fungal related disease, this can slow its already.
Yellow cucumbers indicate that they are over ripe. Harvest them all, and any green ones. Most of the time a cucumber vine will stop producing well if it has managed to get a cucumber to full maturity (yellow,) it thinks that its goal of reproducing has been met.
Sometimes they will continue producing fruit after a yellow cucumber has been produced, but you have to pick them, and keep caring for the plant. If you leave the yellow ones on the vine, the plant will continue to think that it has produced a successful baby, and it doesn’t need more than one.
The yellow ones have gone to seed Which is not great if you want the vines to keep performing. When you allow them to go yellow you’re telling the plant that it’s done its job and it can now die.
Yellow is overripe unless it’s a yellow variety. I would tear it out and start over. Your issue is when the cucumbers turn yellow they have lots of seeds and the plant only grows to produce seed then it stops producing and dies off. Start again but pick them while they are still green.
The yellow one are usually too ripe. You should pick them green. They ripe super fast, check every couple of days.