Calling all Gardeners, help me save my cucumbers!!!!

[Dancing Lotus]

Help, I am a first time gardener and I have little green worms eating my cucumbers. What do I do? I have been spraying with organic stuff but it doesnt seam to be helping.

[AheeK]

Try spraying them with 1 Tablespoon of dish soap to 1 quart water. This can burn some plants, though, so maybe try out the spray on a leaf or two before going for the whole plant. Good luck!

[kabin63]

I found this recipe for pest control in a booklet by Jerry Baker, a master gardener with his own radio show.

Apply this tonic with your 20 gallon hose-end sparayer after 7:00 pm every other week.
1 cup liquid dish soap
1 cup antisertic mouth wash
1 cup chewing tobacco juice (made by soaking 3 fingers in an old nylon stocking and soaking in a gallon of hot water until the mixture is dark)
fill the balance of the sprayer jar with warm water.
Spray your garden to the point of run-off. If insects continue, add liquid sevin to this tonic at the recommended rate for general insects, and bacillus thuringiensis (B+) for caterpillars. You can also mix 6 teaspoons of tomato/vegetable dust (made into a paste first) instead of the sevin.

If you don't have the stuff and don't feel like messing with it I would just get some sevin and dust your cukes. That's what I usually do and it seems to work ok.

[Jaded]

O.K., caterpillars are yucky!

If you want to do organic, use Neem Oil or dust with Bacillus Thurengensis dust or spray. The BT only kills caterpillars. It goes under several names, but the most common is Thuricide. It's available everywhere. Sevin is pretty mild, and does a really good job.

If you have cucumbers worms IN your cucumbers, this is common. You will see a place where they bored in. Just soak the cucumbers in water, and the worms will come out. The cucumbers are still edible, although you may have to trim out the parts where the worms ate. Sounds yucky, but it's a very common thing, and not worth throwing out all your cukes.