Misshapen Cucumbers: Why They Curl, Bulge or Grow Unevenly Quick answer: Misshapen cucumbers are most often the result of incomplete pollination or uneven watering, with heat, cold and plain physical obstruction as secondary causes. Crooked or nubbed fruit usually means some of the ovules inside the flower were never fertilized. Fruit that is fat at…
Whiteflies Returning Despite Repeated Treatment Quick answer: Whiteflies usually return because treatment reaches only part of the population, not because every product has failed. All life stages overlap on the undersides of leaves, soaps and oils kill only what they touch, new adults fly in from nearby plants, and harsh sprays can wipe out the…
Zucchini Flowers Appearing Normally but Young Fruits Rotting at the Blossom End Quick answer: Baby zucchini that rot from the tip while the flowers look normal often point to one of three causes: poor pollination, blossom end rot, or Choanephora wet rot. Look at the rotted end. A yellow, shriveled tip is more typical of…
Cucumber Fruits Becoming Bitter Despite Healthy Growth Quick answer: A lush cucumber vine can still make bitter fruit, because bitterness is a stress response and not a sign of a sick plant. The bitter compounds, called cucurbitacins, normally stay in the leaves, stems and roots but can spread into the fruit under stress. Check watering…
Tomato Hornworms: How to Identify, Control and Prevent Them Quick answer: Tomato hornworms are large green caterpillars that can strip a tomato plant of its foliage. Handpick them when that is practical, leave any hornworm carrying white parasitic wasp cocoons alone, and use Bt on young caterpillars if you need more help. A tomato plant…
Cucumber Plants Producing Many Male Flowers but Few Female Flowers Walk down the cucumber row on any morning in early summer and you may find a happy mess of yellow blooms, dozens of them, and not a single baby cucumber anywhere. The vine looks healthy. The leaves are glossy. Yet every flower you inspect seems…
Tomato Blossom End Rot Despite Calcium Supplements or Eggshells You did everything the gardening videos told you to do. The eggshells were rinsed, dried and crushed, then tucked into the planting hole. Maybe you added a calcium tablet or a bottle of spray on top. And still the first big tomato of the season has…
Yellow Leaves: Overwatering or Nutrient Deficiency? How to Tell Which One You Have Two plants can show the same pale yellow leaves for opposite reasons. One is sitting in soil that never gets a chance to dry. The other is genuinely hungry. The leaf alone rarely settles the question, which is why so many gardeners…
Gardenia Buds Dropping Before They Open: What to Check in Pots and on Patios Gardenia buds that brown and fall before they open are almost always reacting to stress or sudden change, not to one single disease. In containers the usual causes are uneven watering, a pot that overheats, dry air, a recent move, and…
White Salt Crust on Soil: What It Means and How to Fix It A white, crystalline crust on soil is almost always dissolved salt left behind when water evaporates from the surface. A thin film is often harmless, but a thick crust, or one that keeps coming back, means salt is arriving faster than water…
Rose Buds Not Opening: Why They Turn Green, Ball Up or Stay Shut Rose buds that stay tight and then turn brown and papery are often showing balling, especially after wet weather: rain soaks the outer petals, and a sunny spell dries them into a shell. Gray mold and thrips can cause the same stall,…
Severe Catfacing on Tomatoes in Cool Weather: What Happened and What to Do From the top, the tomato looks fine. Turn it over and the blossom end is puckered, scarred and folded in on itself, sometimes so deeply that the seed cavity shows through. If this happened on your first fruits of the season, or…
